TRADITION IN INDIAN SOCIOLOGY 19 new urban Indian middle class and the transitional principle of dharma^ The new traditions, as a modified form of the age-long traditions, are yet in the offing. On the whole, we are a regimented* people under group norms but the majority of us do not feel regimented.6 Hence, not individual, but the group is the unit of society. The significance of a traditional concept of Indian society is summarized in his own words: "For short, the chain of traditions, samptadaya, parampara, has been the true historicity of the Indian social system thus evolved ... the continuity of the Indian social system has been maintained so long."7 Integrative Dimensions and Economic Forces The easy conclusion, that D P Mukhcrjee propounds conservation of tradition in society, should be avoided. Being under Marxist influence, he was an optimistic thinker who regarded that the dynamism of Indian society was also rooted in its tradition. The deeper down one goes in the social reality the more radical one becomes. The traditions for change are sruti and smriti (the discursive reason) and anubhava or experience in the individual or generalized in group. Finally, he accepts the role of symbols in society. Symbols are the products of social reality. As he says, "the study of tradition, in the ultimate analysis, involves that of symbols which under certain conditions and on particular levels, are explosively creative and dynamic".8 Ram Krishna Mukherjee's views are the derivatives of D P Mukher-jee's concept of Indian tradition. Ram Krishna Mukherjee regards tradition as "the schematic point in organism" (in the context of Indian society) which can be used as a comparative frame of reference for measuring social change in India. The Indian traditions provide four dimensions of integration in our people. Social change is almost a 'variation' (probably in the sense of disorganization) on this intra-India static four-dimensional model: the place in which an Indian is born, brought up and dies> the kin group to which a person belongs, the caste to which he is affiliated, and finally the linguistic region to which he is integrated.9 This is an id^al of Indian society. The sociologists must understand it in order to study change or introduce measures of planned change* In the same strain Ram Krishna Mukherjee would quote D P Uukherjee to emphasize th^ economic aspect of the structural change which can bring significant alteration: Traditions have great power of resistance and absorption. Unless the force is extraordinarily strong—and it is that strong only when the modes of production are altered—traditions survive by adjustments-The capacity for adjustment is the measure of the vitality of tradition ...the Indian sociologist should precede the socialist interpretations of changes in the Indian tradition in terms of economic forces.l ° Sociology of Knowledge Reconsidered ^ Logically A K Saran^s non-positivistic approcah to society leads to an approach to the sociology of knowledge to account for the "traditional,.