Ancient Indian Wisdom for a Restless Age

Jahnvi Borgohain looks at a variety of approaches to happiness.

- Jahnvi Borgohain

Across many centuries and all continents, philosophers have wrestled with a deceptively simple question: 'What makes human life happy?' Aristotle called his version of happiness eudaimonia and said it was achieved through virtue and reason. Epicurus saw happiness as tranquillity (ataraxia) – a life free from unnecessary pain and full of simple pleasures. Today, we might equate happiness with comfort, success, or even a perfect image on social media. But once we step beyond this, we discover many older and deeper traditions that invite us to think differently about it.

In India, from about the sixth century BCE on, a dazzling variety of philosophical schools or darśanas emerged, with each offering a distinctive answer to this very question. These schools debated with, critiqued, and enriched each other in a lively intellectual culture. Together, they revealed not just a single path to happiness, but many diverse and intersecting ones. Some of these schools placed happiness in knowledge, others in detachment, others in ethical action, and others in pleasure or unity; but an underlying theme in all of them was seeing happiness as a union with the 'ultimate'.

In the following, I will take you on a journey through some of the orthodox Indian schools of thought, pausing along the way to explain how these ancient ideas tie into modern ideas of happiness. We will see that these schools offer not merely abstract theories, but maps for living. I'll finish by sharing the vision of happiness that feels most meaningful to me in today's restless world.

Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika: Happiness as Knowledge that Frees