Pre-modern Indian Philosophical Commitments and “Money”

This chapter is an introduction to “Indian philosophy” as far as the interlinkages between “Indian philosophy” and “money” are concerned. By philosophy, I mean art of living, truth telling, political philosophy, philosophy of obligation, or ethics of gifting. “Money” might refer to coins, but also more generally to wealth and power or even to worldly consequences. The chapter shows how pre-modern India developed an “art of living” on the basis of the triad of artha, dharma, and kāma. Dharma is about religious duties or moral obligations. Acts only qualify as dharmic if they are done without apparent or worldly motives. Inversely, artha is concerned with worldly ambitions, with wealth and power (i.e., with “money” in a wide sense). A second topic concerns obligations analyzed through the particularly Indian viewpoints of debt and svadharma. The latter concerns duties specific to the actor’s social class. A third area of this chapter deals with otherworldly benefits and this-worldly benefits. Furthermore, “truth” in the sense of the “correspondence theory of truth” is of specific relevance for this chapter. It is shown how money may help the king or parties to a judicial conflict to signal honesty.