Science of financial management in ancient India

Abstract

It is a lesser known fact to many people that India was the highest contributor to world GDP until the first millennium. A strong GDP indicates a strong economy which in turn suggests a strong and robust financial system. But unfortunately Indians have not been great at record keeping and hence even to know what finance systems existed during the time of our ancestors, we need to rely on the huge corpus of literature sources. Most of the current research as well as understanding of the ancient Indian finance systems is from the study of the great work Arthaśāstra of  Kauṭilya. This paper is an attempt to look at sources beyond the Arthaśāstra, in fact scanning right from the Vedic literature onwards.