The Indian Concept of Money: A Literary Survey

Abstract

Indian society has given importance on money and wealth from the ancient time itself. The Vedic literature identifies four main objectives of human life—dharma, artha, kama and moksha. To fulfill the other three objectives, earning of artha was given importance. By the term artha includes wealth, means of livelihood, financial security and economic prosperity. The other scriptures like Upanisads, Bhagavat Geeta, Manu Samhita, Bhagavata, Kautilya’s Arthasastra, Thirukural in Tamil etc. also deals to great extent the monetary aspects. The modern economic theory mainly emphasizes on efficient utilization of resources to maximize individual satisfaction. Money plays an important role in maximizing production, consumption and satisfaction. In the race of product maximization certain problems like income inequality, environmental degradation, health hazard, tragedy of commons etc. emerge. To solve these problems concept of money need to be discussed in the view of ancient Indian texts. The present study tries to analyze the Indian perception of money and wealth available in scriptures of ancient times; also tries to find the differences between ancient and modern concepts of money. After discussion it is found that the ancient Indian scripture discusses about the nature of money, ways of earning money, it’s spending, tips for better management of money so that maximum social welfare could be achieved.