Dharma is a Sanskrit word with no equivalent or translation in English (or other western languages). Duty, justice, order or custom, religion, morality, goodness all have something to do with it but fall short of explaining it. Derived from the Sanskrit root धृ, meaning “to exist, live, sustain, hold or support”, Dharma denotes behaviours that are in accord with ऋत , the cosmic order that holds life and universe together. Dharma comes from Hindu Vedic tradition, and its meaning and conceptual scope has evolved over several millennia. In Buddhism, dharma (Pali: dhamma) refers to the teachings of the Buddha. In various contexts, Dharma means human behaviours considered necessary for order of things in the universe, behaviours that do not create suffering, and behaviours that liberate. Now putting the two together, “Dharmic Business” simply means goal of a company should be Dharmic pursuit of wealth for its stakeholders and wellbeing of the society and the planet at large.

The Dharmic approach
This Dharmic thought was developed in ashrams by our great rishis out of the well being (कल्याण) of humanity.  While west extols greed , hindu belief recognises greed(लोभ) as one of the six enemies (षड्रिपु) – others being काम, क्रोध, मोह, मद and मात्सर्य . In fact, it is very interesting that the Sanskrit word अर्थ has two meanings – “Wealth” and “Meaning”. The Indian wisdom tradition says that while pursuit of material well being is important (“भूखे पेट भजन न होई गोपाला”) , the pursuit of meaning is key for human life. Once the basic needs of a human are fulfilled, accumulating more wealth (अर्थ) does not lead to more happiness (सुख) as shown in this graph:

Fig 1: Mean happiness for income bands

Indian wisdom traditions have always offered an answer to this challenge through the concept of “Purushartha”. Purusharthas are objectives of human life that apply to all of our lives. Our wisdom traditions solve the question raised by the above graph by introducing “Dharma” between income (Artha) and happiness(Sukh).

सुखस्य मूलं धर्मः , धर्मस्य मूलं अर्थः

(Chanakya Sutra, Sutra 1, 2)

धनाद्धर्मं ततः सुखम्

(Hitopadesa, Chapter 1, Shlok 6)

Why Businesses should be Dharmic now?
India finds itself at a major inflection point in history. The last few decades have seen the country emerge from its “hindu” rate of growth to become one of the fastest growing large economies in the world. In fact, India is predicted to become the third-largest economy by FY28, overtaking both Japan and Germany. With more than 50k startups its startup ecosystem is the third largest in the world. In order to sustain this expected economic growth of the next few decades the role of the businesses become very important. Dharma will lead to joyful, enduring and sustainable businesses while contributing to this economic growth and creating more fulfilled individuals and joyful society at large.