Abstract

Humanity has always sought ways to understand and manage economic activity — how goods are produced, how wealth is distributed, how markets function, and how societies achieve prosperity. In modern economic science, economists trace the roots of systematic thought to European thinkers like Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and John Maynard Keynes. Yet long before these figures, ancient civilizations had developed sophisticated reflections on economic life. In the Indian subcontinent, economic thinking was deeply woven into social, ethical, and spiritual life. Economic principles were not isolated academic abstractions; they were embedded within wider philosophical frameworks of human well-being, societal duty, justice, and sustainable living. The ancient Indian intellectual inheritance, often grouped under the broader Indian Knowledge System (IKS), includes teachings from the Vedas, Upanishads, Dharmaśāstras, and especially the treatise Arthashastra, attributed to Chanakya (Kautilya), which articulated economic policy, statecraft, and administration in surprising detail. These texts provide timeless insights that prefigure many modern economic concepts and can offer valuable perspectives for contemporary economic policy and theory. This article explores how ancient Indian economic wisdom resonates with and can be applied to modern economics — particularly in areas like governance, fiscal policy, welfare, sustainable development, ethical economics, and the role of institutions.