Meaning and Purpose of Life: Perspectives from Indian Philosophy and Mainstream Economics

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Nishkam Sandesh Agarwal is a South Asian philosopher with a comprehensive background in Sanskrit and Economics. Bom in San Francisco, California, he studied Sanskrit formally for seven years in New Delhi, India and graduated from The Modern School with the singular distinction of having stood First in Class every year for 13 years, capping it with Class Valedictorian and fifth rank in India in the All-India Higher Secondary Examination in 1974. He continued to pursue Indian Philosophy informally while completing a BA in Mathematics and Economics, with Honours, Class One at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom and a Ph.D. in Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As a U.S. Foreign Service Economist with the Agency for International Development, as a Civil Service bureaucrat, and as an academician at Johns Hopkins University where he taught Economics at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, he honed his interests in International Development and the Environment. In his latest incarnation as a philosopher and historian, he studied Asian history at the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University, and has lectured on Indian Philosophy at conferences worldwide. Having lived in parts of Asia, Europe and Africa, he currently resides in Columbia, Maryland. This book is his first serious endeavour at putting down on paper for a wider audience what he has come to believe he needs to know for himself in order to lead a more meaningful, happier and richer life.

Ahough I take full responsibility for the contents and ideas presented in this book, I owe a huge debe of gratitude to a large number of people who inspired and educated me over the years. My story of initiation into the field of Indian philosophy really began before my birth. My father Satya Prakash Agarwal, who was born and brought up in Rajasthan, India, received an early introduction to philosophy in the company of his father Ram Swaroop and mother Sita Devi in Bikaner, Rajasthan Ram Swaroop, inspired by the tides of history in the era of Mahatma Gandhi, and Swami Vivekananda during India's struggle for freedom in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, founded a Sarvahitkarini Sabha, a variation on a lokasamgraha-oriented non-government organization dedicated to the "welfare of society."

Armed with ideas of philosophy and social welfare in his childhood, the young Satya Agarwal (my father) developed an interest in teaching himself Sanskrit, which was to remain his abiding lifelong companion. When he moved to San Francisco in 1948 to pursue graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, he decided early on to simultaneously pursue his interests in Indian philosophy. He counted as his associates’ individuals like Joan Bondurant and Karl Potter who later became luminaries in South Asian Studies in the US academic system. He also was instrumental in starting the teaching of Hindi at the University of California, Berkeley. My mother Urmila completed a Masters in Asian Studies under the guidance of Professor Alan Watts at the College of the Pacific, now University of the Pacific, in Stockton, California, in 1956, the year I was born at the Chinese Hospital, in Chinatown, San Francisco. While in San Francisco in the fifties, my parents were involved at the American Academy of Asian Studies and at the Institute of Integral Studies founded and inspired by Haridas Choudhry and Zen guru Alan Watts. In this sense, I can say that my initiation to the fascinating subject of South Asian Studies really started no later than the year of my birth.

Later I studied Sanskrit formally for seven years at the Modern School, New Delhi. I can truly say that this was one of the most enduring gifts I received during my stay in India through high school. It changed the way I thought about life, and inspired me to pursue the Meaning and Purpose of Life based on the ideas of Indian philosophy, and in particular of Vedanta as enshrined in the Prasthana Traya (Gita, Upanishads and Brahma Sutra). While I later completed my Ph.D. in Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Massachusetts, I had the opportunity to discuss some of my ideas relating to the possible overlap of concepts between economics and Indian philosophy with my gurus there, and in particular with Lance Taylor, Bob Solow and Marty Weitzman. Lance gave me strict instructions to "come back" and explore the links further in "twenty years." So here I am.

I thank also the many individuals who assisted me with the publishing and printing process, including Katie Caiola, and in particular Larisa Mendez Downes in the United States, who deserves a special acknowledgement for efficiently guiding the manuscript through to the printing stage over many months. Cover design assistance was provided by Manu Badlani in Maryland, and expertly by Neena Jindal in New Jersey. I am very grateful to Shuchita Ghai and Vikas Ghai at Sterling Publishers, New Delhi for consistently helpful advice and professionalism during the printing process.

I feel great pleasure in introducing to readers throughout the world this pioneering study by Nishkam Agarwal on "Meaning and Purpose of Life: Perspectives from Indian Philosophy and Mainstream Economics." Such a scholarly study obviously required an author like Dr. Agarwal, who possesses a rare blend of expertise in two important fields, namely the ancient field of Vedanta (which he formally studied for more than seven years), and the modern field of economics (in which he obtained a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

Although Vedanta has three main books (Prasthana Traya), namely, Upanisads, Brahmasutras, and Bhagavad-Gita, my observations are based primarily on my expertise related to Bhagavad-Gita. The unique importance of Indian ideas in the entire spiritual field is widely recognized by Western scholars, and such recognition has steadily strengthened in the last 225 years, starting from 1785. Although Indian ideas are mentioned in Hindu as well as non-Hindu texts (including Buddhist texts), my knowledge of the non-Hindu texts is rather limited.

I view this book's contribution to have the potential of being accorded historic importance by international scholars in due course of time. Therefore, I present here, very briefly, how the process of universalization of Hindu ideas began in 1785, and then, steadily gathered speed in the last two centuries.

The first attempt, in my opinion, was in the form of translation when Bhagavad-Gita was published in book form in England. This pathbreaking step was taken by English scholar Charles Wilkins in 1785. Copies of this book arrived in the United States in 1845. Although this translation subsequently suffered due to the great popularity of Edwin Arnold's The Song Celestial, the Australian scholar Eric Sharpe highlighted the significance of this being the first attempt because, in his opinion, on the date of Wilkins' translation the Gita became "The Universal Gita."

In 1828, Rammohan Roy tried to bring together Vedanta and the Bible by founding a new organization named Brahmo Samaj. Roy's attempt, however, did not win adequate support, either from Vedantins or from Christians, for more than a few decades. But Brahmo Samaj did contribute to the spiritual development of Vivekananda when he was a student at Calcutta University.

In the closing decades of the nineteenth century (from 1893 onwards), Vivekananda presented a modernized version of Hinduism at the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago. At the request of Western scholars, Vivekananda stayed in the United States and Europe for several years and contributed a lot towards making Vedanta known to people, not only the Americans and Europeans, but also those from other regions. Unfortunately, the rest of the international community did not benefit fully from what Vivekananda could have accomplished due to his untimely demise in 1902. In recent years, The Ramakrishna Mission, founded by Vivekananda in 1897, has been actively trying to fill this void through the unique knowledge and commitment of its members to pursue Vivekananda's mission.