What constitutes Good management?

Lessons from Ancient Sanskrit Scriptures

By Prof. B Mahadevan, Inidan Institute of Management, Bangalore

Is Sanskrit relevant to contemporary society? The popular thinking is that there is very little in Sanskrit
that is of great relevance in todays scheme of things. We have been witnesses to great revolutions in the
field of science and technology, especially in the last 50 years. We are very happy that these
technological advancements have greatly improved the standard of living in a developing country like
ours. However, were not sure if, in this process, the quality of life has improved as well. We have so
many problems confronting us on a day-to-day basis in education, governance and the society at large.
Few of our youngsters are creative and innovative enough to come up with extraordinary performances in
their chosen fields. There is a lacuna in leadership as well. In this state of affairs, what can Sanskrit do?
Its scriptures and ancestral works of wisdom contain apparently dated ideas that may interest the
religious and philosophically minded, but how is it relevant for solving the kind of problems we are facing
today?

Allow me to answer this question by showcasing the contemporary relevance and usefulness of Sanskrit
in the context of Management.

Management: A context for contemporary relevance

First, we need to clearly understand what is meant by contemporary relevance. To me it appears that if a
proposition, a concept or any entity is to be defined as contemporary, it must :

1. Contain key ideas that one can relate to current day living

2. Contain principles that one can practice to resolve existing problems.

It is from this perspective that I propose to show you that Sanskrit is indeed relevant in the modern day.

The concept of Management is always relevant, and affects every person who is part of any social
system; it is not a specialized subject to be used only by a handful of people. A householder, a teacher, a
student, a professional, NGOs and organizations have each to observe specific principles of management
if his/her efforts are to fructify. In developing countries like India, most of the problems faced by the
country result from the bad management practices followed by our administrators.

Sanskrit is a rich repository of knowledge that could be gainfully exploited in the area of classical science,
including mathematics, astronomy, health and so on. As a professor of management, Ill be happy to
leave an impression at the end of the day that Sanskrit literature also provides considerable scope for us
to draw useful lessons for managing our day-to-day living.

Guiding principles of management

I have been teaching students of management for the last 15 years, and based on this experience I can
list down some of the most important attributes that constitute good management:

The ability to think big, visualize and be creative.

Adopting systematic approaches to problem solving: this involves developing a spirit of inquiry, a
sense of keen observation and getting an empirical understanding of events through classification,
coding, generalization and verification of findings.
 Acquiring an attitude of learning as a way of life

Capacity to manage conflicts that arise between long-term and short-term goals

Developing leadership traits

Developing these skills invariably leads one to perform exceptionally well, develop great insights about
problems and solutions. In todays lecture, I would like to explore the wonderful expressions in our ancient
Sanskrit literature, which illustrate how our ancients were guided by these principles of good
management.

Visualising, thinking creatively and thinking big

One of the serious deficiencies that we have noticed amongst Indian managers through our numerous
interactions is that they are not adequately creative. Where should we learn to nurture our creative skills,
to learn how to think big, to visualize? The average young person in our country would not know that our
ancestors were among the most creative people on earth. How do I say that? Let me answer the
question by giving you some examples.

Visualising

Since time immemorial, the human race has been constantly engaged in trying to understand the
relationship between God, man and the universe. In our ancient literature, there are not one, not two, but
six schools of philosophy that seek to elaborately address this issue, each in its own way. These schools
of philosophy are Nyaya, Vaisesika, Sankhya, Yoga, Purva Mimamsa and Uttara Mimamsa.

The aspects of Creation (Brahma), Preservation (Vishnu) and Destruction (Siva) of the Universe have
also been imaginatively dealt with by our rishis and ancestors in the form of eighteen Mahapuranas - six
each covering Brahma, Vishnu and Siva.

Let us consider the question how to reach salvation:If you look at our yogic Sciences, four alternative
methods have been proposed - Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raja Yoga, Jnana Yoga. We were told that
each individual is unique and therefore requires unique methods of reaching salvation. What greater
evidence do we need to acknowledge that we, as a society, believed in the value of imbibing an
awareness of different viewpoints, understanding Reality by approaching it in different ways, expressing
the idea differently for different sets of people? As far as I know, the essence of Vedic thought and
Hinduism promotes diversity as a way of life, which in turn is a good indicator of the powers of
visualization and creative thinking of a society - the very values that a good practitioner of management
requires today!

Thinking creatively

So far, all I have said is intended to encourage you to think that, perhaps, our ancestors cherished the
values of creativity and visualizing the big picture. There are more ways of understanding how creativity
was manifest in our culture, society and thinking. Take any of our ancient works such as the Upanishads
or the Gita. One thing that is strikingly different is our ability to provide unique mechanisms of knowledge
representation. Let me give you some examples:

A verse in the Mundaka Upanishad and a similar passage in Laghunyasa too, loosely translated say that
the presiding deity of the pair of ears is space and the presiding deity of the pair of eyes is the Sun or
Agni.
Taken at face value, or literally, such a description of the sense organs in terms of their presiding deities
may sound nonsensical; but consider them from the following, different perspective and you will be
amazed by the element of creativity that has given rise to such unique knowledge representations.

Think for a moment that there is no sun to light the world (of course there was no electricity in those
ages). It would be pitch dark everywhere. Of what use is the power of vision in such a situation? Similarly,
sound waves cannot travel from one place to another in a vacuum. Ether is the medium in which it travels.
Therefore, the description of sense organs in terms of their presiding deities imaginatively communicates
some idea about their functioning and the enabling mechanisms required. The curious can find umpteen
examples of such creative thinking in the Sanskrit literature of our ancestors

We have the greatest possible creative narration in the two Ithihasas - Ramayana and Mahabharata -
besides a rich legacy of mythological stories outside the purview of these narratives. What better
expression of creativity can there be than that expressed in these great works of our ancestors?

Thinking big

As for the issue of thinking big, which is another important attribute of management, why is it important
that managers should think big? Ability to think big brings along with it an intense desire to achieve the
dream and motivates a person to carry forward his vision along with his peers in achieving such a goal.
This is true not only for a manager but for any visionary. Unfortunately, we do not find many of todays
youngsters exhibiting this attribute.

Is there anything to learn from our past as far as thinking big is concerned? The first thing that comes to
my mind is the lesson on how to think big that is provided by chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita, wherein
there is a beautiful description of the Viswaroopa Darshanam of Lord Krishna. The radiance of Lord
Krishna, in this stanza, is equated to the light emerging from a thousand sunrises at the same time!

The timelessness that this ability to think big confers on the thinker was affirmed when Robert
Oppenheimer, who exploded the first atom bomb quoted these very lines from the Gita to his team, saying
that the light that emerged as a result of the explosion reminded him of the thousand rising Suns
described in the verse. How many Indians would have related some of their unprecedented experiences
in life to such timeless expressions found in many of our ancient Scriptures and Vedantic texts? Why is it
that we never think about the work done by our ancestors? Perhaps, one reason for this is that we are not
even aware of what we have in our Sanskrit scriptures!

Our ancestors, emphasizing the need to think big, went to the extent of equating the ability to think big
with immortality, as this verse, in translation, shows:

In the little there lies no happiness

The vast alone is bliss;

Immortal is the vast

Mortal is the little.

Our ancestors ability to think big is probably best represented in their approach to mathematics and the
number system in particular. In the second chapter of Lilavati of Bhaskaracharya, there is a description of
numbers from 100 to 1017. Our ancestors even felt the need for much larger numbers than this. I am given
to understand that there are terms for numbers up to 10 140 in Sanskrit!
In Srimad Bhagavatam (also called Bhagavata Maha Purana), a work that comes under religious
literature, Canto 3, Chapter 11, gives a beautiful description of the concept of time ranging from
10-6 seconds to 1017 years!

There are many more examples that I can quote as evidence of our ancestors ability to think big.
Let me show you another example from our scriptures before I take up the next attribute for good
management. The second column shows the number of human years (365 days) attributed by our
ancients to each of the time periods in the first column:

Description Number of years

1 Cycle of 4 Yugas 438,000,000
Day time of Brahma 438,000,000,000
Night time of Brahma 438,000,000,000
One day of Brahma 876,000,000,000
100 Years of Brahma 31,974,000,000,000,000
One half of Brahma's life 15,987,000,000,000,000

By merely increasing our awareness of these great works, we will definitely be inspired to think creatively.
Going a step further and learning the language, reading the immortal works of our ancestors, and
understanding their beauty, will breed in us a desire and an attitude to think big.

A systematic approach

As a management researcher I find that the requirements for developing superior principles of
management are qualities that our ancestors have always believed in - developing knowledge through
inquiry, keen observation, systematic classification, coding and empirical generalization of observed
phenomena.

What happens when you have a systematic approach to developing knowledge? One immediate benefit
that we will get is to develop better understanding of seemingly complex ideas. We will also be in a
position to classify things better and use the classification framework to explain a variety of observed
phenomena. I see evidences of these in several of the ancient works.

Spirit of inquiry

Throughout our ancient Scriptures we find that our ancestors have not been wanting at all when it comes
to the spirit of inquiry. Get hold of a copy of the Upanishads or the Bhagavad Gita, albeit in translation,
and count for yourself how many questions were asked during the discourses therein. In
Prashnopanishad (prashna+upanishad), for instance, Pippalada and six disciples discuss some of the
toughest ideas about life, Nature, God and the universe with their teacher. The entire discussion is in a
question-and-answer mode. It is this unflagging spirit of inquiry that enabled our ancestors to develop
superior knowledge, unique knowledge representation systems, diversified and alternative theories and
the perfect language called Sanskrit.

Keen observation, etc.

The other important requirement is an ability to keenly observe events, systematically develop
classification methodologies, empirically generalize observed phenomena and build theories based on the
insights obtained.

Perhaps, there is no better evidence of our ancestors ability to develop systematic knowledge than what
you see in Canto 3, chapter 11 of Bhagavata Maha Purana. We already saw that in this very chapter of
the Purana, the concept of time has been described vividly. Also contained in this chapter is a precise
methodology for the measurement of a unit of time, nadhika:

Take a pot of copper weighing six palas, which can hold one prastha of water and pierce the bottom of the
pot using a gold needle weighing four mahsas and four angulas long. If you leave the pot floating on the
water surface, the time taken by such a pot to be fully submerged as it gets filled with water through the
pierced hole is equivalent to one nadhika.

Saturn is near star Rohini. Mars is approaching Anuradha from Jyestha. There is a planet
near Citra (Udyoga parvan)

1. Saturn is staying near Rohini (Bhishma parvan)

1. A white planet resides, having crossed Citra (Bhishma parvan).

Do you see the scientific rigour in this definition of a unit of time?

How many of you know that there are references in the Rig Veda that give the velocity of light as
accurately as what we know today?

In the third chapter of Prashnopanishad, the guru defines vyana. What is vyana? Well find out
presently. Now, just consider this description:

The atma is the heart; the ultimate spirit sits here; there are a hundred and one nadis emerging out of it;
out of each one of these nadis you get a hundred more; and from each one of them, seventy two
thousand.

When you multiply all that (1x101x100x72,000), you realize that this is the nervous system that they were
talking about, for, using modern gadgets, it has been found that there are 72,72,00,000 (seventy two crore
seventy two lakh) nadis in the nervous system of homo sapiens.

How did they make such observations? That is not the question Im trying to answer. That there was some
systematic way of looking at things, a spirit of scientific inquiry, a way of documenting all that - that is what
I am trying to show you.

Another example of our ancestors ability to systematically develop knowledge is clear from the stark
contrast between the modern, evolving definition of health and our ancestral approach.. Let me contrast
our ancestors definitions with that of WHO.

In 1940, the World Health Organization described health as the "state of complete physical, emotional,
and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity". This widely accepted definition was
expanded only in the 1970s and 1980s to include other components such as intellectual, environmental,
and spiritual health.

In contrast to this definition, our ancient definitions were much more holistic. They

<>emphasized the need for including issues much more than mere physical aspects.

Sushruta clearly states that being healthy means having a healthy soul, mind and sensory organs
(suggesting healthy thinking and action). Similarly, Charaka emphasizes that the appropriate definition of
being healthy means being ones own self.
Such robust definitions can only be the outcome of a spirit of inquiry and a systematic approach to
observation and knowledge creation.

Learning as a way of life

We saw so many examples of creating superior knowledge that led our ancestors to develop frameworks
to understand complex ideas in life, develop deeper insights into observed phenomena and lay down
several governing principles in science, mathematics and astronomy. How do you think this was possible?
What infrastructure do we need to develop these skills? We find answers to this question by
understanding the concept of learning as our ancestors practiced.

I teach a very interesting concept called creating a learning organization, because it is the in thing for
business organizations. Being in the institute of management, I am supposed to impart new ideas in
management to my students. But I always begin with the following millenium-old couplet of our ancestors,
which beautifully summarises the concept of learning as we are beginning to appreciate today.

Acaryat padamadatte padam sishyah svamedhaya

padam sabrahmacharibhyah padam kalakramena ca.

<>Meaning: From the teacher, a quarter is learnt; a quarter, the student learns through reflection;
another quarter, he learns from discussions with peers; the rest he learns only with time.

Today, there is enormous emphasis on self-reflection and thinking. If people refuse to think, internalize
and reflect on the ideas they have acquired, then 25% learning is gone. In the last 10 years, in business
schools and corporate entities, there is a premium on what

is called small group activities, on team effort and the potential opportunities for learning during such
exercises. Interestingly, the sloka says that collective discussion of the subject matter results in 25%
learning. Further, it was after considerable research during the 1990s that management researchers
concluded that learning is a continuous process. On the other hand, our ancestors reached the same
conclusion 1000 years ago. They proclaimed that 25% of a persons learning will occur in the course of
life.

I am using this couplet in my learning organizations lectures simply because I stumbled on it accidentally.
If we systematically delve into our literature with specific focus, what treasures may we end up
uncovering!

How to resolve conflicts between short term and long term issues

Before we take up this question, let me take a minute or two to introduce to you the concept of going
concern. What it literally means is that when we judge the performance of a company, typically at the end
of every year, we make an important assumption that the company is not going to be wound up; it intends
to go on existing. This is precisely why we prepare a profit and loss account and a balance sheet to
judge the performance of a company.

This modern concept of a going concern finds an easy parallel in the Hindu idea of reincarnation, which
tells us that at the end of this life we carry along a net profit or loss to one more incarnation and so the
journey goes on until we are released from the cycle of rebirths. The challenging part, however, is the
ability to manage life during this sojourn and finding a way to end the cycle of rebirths. This is a classical
problem of resolving short-term and long-term conflicts.

In our ancient literature, there are numerous discussions on how we should handle this conflict.
Understanding the methodologies propounded by these deliberations and reflecting on the basis on which
these arguments are founded would go a long way in shaping our ability to apply the same ideas to
conflict resolution in the context of managing short-term versus long-term issues .

Leadership traits

How do we identify good leaders - what are the traits that distinguish them is a question that bothers
many of us in management.

The Bhagavad Gita.says, Leaders need to practice what they preach; otherwise they lose their
credibility.

This is a well known and easily understood dimension of a good leader. Let us look at another sloka in the
Gita, which brings out a subtler concept of leadership.

In this sloka, Krishna says that he is likely to be a good leader who is not swayed by flattery nor affected
by dissent and loses not his composure even when abused or attacked.He says emotional stability is the
greatest requirement for a good leader.

These days, we ask managers aspiring to be leaders to keep their nerves under all circumstances - If you
do something great, dont lose your balance. Even if you have lost everything, dont lose your balance.
Dont see whether a person belongs to the opposition group or your group. Look at the whole discussion
objectively, we advise. Krishna was not saying anything different.

The way forward

Today, we have covered sufficient ground on the issue of relevance of Sanskrit to contemporary society,
in the context of management. As a professor of management, it was both a convenience and a
conscious choice for me to opt for this topic. But, if we take up alternative topics such as relevance of
Sanskrit to contemporary society in the context of public administration, science, mathematics, or
astronomy we would probably find that Sanskrit has a lot to contribute to these areas of knowledge as
well.

One more issue seems to strongly suggest the need for Sanskrit in todays world. Winning Intellectual
property rights (IPR) battles, which are increasingly governing world trade, requires an ability to establish
the chronology of events leading to the process or product or knowledge for which the IPR is being
claimed. To provide evidence of our countrys prior knowledge of unique processes and products we need
to know Sanskrit, for, in that language lies buried all our erstwhile knowledge. Relevance of Sanskrit,
therefore, assumes particular significance for Indians in this day and age. But the existing infrastructure
for imparting Sanskrit education is far from what is required to gainfully benefit from our ancient wisdom.

How are we going to solve this problem? Little can be expected from the government and the political
class; neither can something miraculous happen to enable a critical mass to learn Sanskrit adequately so
as to help our country reap the benefits that could be mined from the wealth of Sanskrit literature. To me,
it appears that there are two options for dealing with the critical issue of preserving the language for the
future of our nation:

Students who are in a position to make a conscious choice to study Sanskrit at the school
and the college levels must do so. By doing this, they prepare themselves for greater,
more meaningful and targeted efforts of putting the language to day-to-day use in the
future.
Professionals who have sorted out the major concern of earning a satisfactory livelihood
can take up learning Sanskrit, so as to bring into the limelight interesting ideas and
 ancient wisdom pertaining to their profession, which subsequently can be inducted into
the mainstream.

If several of us make a conscious effort to participate in this process, gradually the government, the
policymakers and the public will see the relevance of the language and a day will come when learning
Sanskrit and putting the learning to use will become as attractive as doing that with the foreign language
called English.