"Textual perspective is important in understanding of Indian Social System." Discuss. (Answer in 150 words)

- "Textual perspective is important in understanding of Indian Social System." Discuss. (Answer in 150 words)
Introduction
Classical texts open Indian society to view; they do not complete the account.
Body
1. What the textual perspective does: It derives social structure from the Vedas, the Dharmashastras and the epics rather than from observation, treating them as the civilisation's normative order. Ghurye and Dumont both worked this way.
2. The case for its importance: Indian society is unusually text-bound: varna, dharma and karma are the categories people use about themselves. Dumont's Homo Hierarchicus drew the purity-pollution opposition from the texts and made hierarchy caste's organising principle; Ghurye's Caste and Race in India (1932) used philology against Risley's racial theory.
3. What the texts cannot reach: They record a literate upper-caste minority and say little of Dalits, of women's practice or of tribes. Srinivas's contrast between the book view and the field view made the point at Rampura, where the dominant caste, not varna, settled rank.
Conclusion
The perspective is necessary for the categories Indian society thinks in, and insufficient for the society it is.