Corporate Social Responsibility: a philosophical approach from an ancient Indian perspective

In this paper, an attempt has been made to explore the philosophy of Corporate social responsibility (CSR) from an ancient Indian perspective. A review of literature in CSR shows that there are thousands of articles which have been written by several academics on this subject from numerous perspectives, but limited articles written about CSR from the philosophical, historical and from the ancient perspectives. As a result, this article not only fills the gap in the literature, but also provides insights on CSR philosophy from the ancient Indian perspective. In the Indian context, the origin of CSR can be traced from the Vedic literatures such as the Valmiki Ramayana, the Mahabharata (includes the Bhagavad-Gita) and the Puranas. These literatures were written more than 5,000 years ago in Sanskrit language.