Hindu thought shaped business in India long before Silicon Valley, says new study

A research paper recently came out from the corridors of the University of Glasgow. An Indian professor published a study titled ‘Understanding Hindu Religious Entrepreneurship: A Translation Perspective’. At first glance, it may appear to be centred on religion, as Hinduism is often perceived globally. The paper, however, explores something different. It examines how the idea of entrepreneurship, with deep roots in India and often associated with the Vaishya community (The idea of the Vaishya community derives from Vedic texts and was originally rooted in occupational classification), differs from Western notions of capitalism, especially in the understanding of wealth, enterprise and economic activity. Read Full Story Ancient Hindu thought recognised Artha, economic prosperity, as one of the four Purusharthas, alongside Dharma (duty), Kama (desire) and Moksha (liberation). Professor Sreevas Sahasranamam, who authored the paper, spoke with 15 Hindu entrepreneurs whose beliefs and practices are connected to what he describes as Hindu entrepreneurship. The study found that several of them viewed business less as commerce alone and more as an obligation linked to tradition, responsibility and purpose. The modern world often remembers wealth through a familiar lens. Mention entrepreneurship and names surface quickly, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg. Mention capitalism and attention shifts to London’s industrial age, Wall Street or Silicon Valley. Somewhere within this understanding, another assumption quietly settles in: India produced sages, not wealth creators; scriptures, not systems; spirituality, not enterprise. History suggests otherwise. India’s contribution to nearly 33% of the global economy around two millennia ago offers one indication. Trade routes survived for centuries because Indian goods remained in demand. Merchants from southern India built maritime networks, commodities moved across continents and commerce linked distant regions long before modern business vocabulary emerged. Entrepreneurship and trade, then, were not unfamiliar ideas on Indian soil. Even Indian rulers and merchants, at times, linked wealth with duty. One example often cited comes from the 16th century. As the ruler of Mewar, Maharana Pratap, continued his unwillingness to accept the authority of Mughal emperor Akbar, Mewar’s treasury weakened and continuing the struggle became a challenge. It was then that Bhamashah, a minister and treasurer associated with the Vaishya community and long connected with the Mewar court, offered his wealth to support Maharana Pratap’s campaign. This is an example of how wealth and accumulation were, in Indian traditions, tied to responsibility beyond personal gain. Bhamashah offers his entire wealth to Maharana Pratap, a moment remembered in Rajput history. (AI-generated image) THE OLD NATIVE CONCEPT Recent findings linked to inscriptions discovered inside an Egyptian pyramid suggest that as early as the 2nd century BCE, regions of southern India were exchanging goods in significant quantities with distant civilisations. Indian commodities were in demand from East to West. Evidence survives in Song China from around a millennium ago, while the West imported Indian products for centuries, long before terms like ‘market expansion’ and ‘scaling’ entered business language. Closer to home, villages, and even present-day cities, offer glimpses of how deeply the idea of entrepreneurship has existed across the length and breadth of this land, often tracing back to some of the world’s oldest civilisations. A potter shaping clay into utensils, pastoral communities selling dairy products, forest-dwelling groups turning honey, herbs or bamboo into everyday goods, weavers producing textiles, blacksmiths crafting tools, or local traders moving commodities between regions, enterprise was woven into ordinary life long before the language of startups and business models emerged. The temple economies, banking networks and philosophical frameworks did not separate ethics from economic activity. Economic activity was not outside morality. It was expected to function within it. The irony is difficult to miss. For decades, research explored Christianity and entrepreneurship, Protestant ethics and capitalism, Islamic finance and enterprise. Hinduism, despite having nearly 1.2 billion followers, remained largely absent. The paper notes that only two studies explicitly focused on Hinduism in entrepreneurship literature. Perhaps some ideas disappear not because they lack value, but because nobody writes them into textbooks. Source: Wikipedia THE EMPIRE THAT CHANGED HOW INDIANS THOUGHT ABOUT WORK Colonialism altered more than institutions. It rearranged categories inside the mind. British educational systems and colonial administration introduced ideas where modernity increasingly became associated with Western secular frameworks, while indigenous traditions became confined to private life. Religio