Multi-disciplinary and Trans-disciplinary Approach to Attaining Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) and Aspects of Indian Indigenous Knowledge Systems

Abstract

Starting with an encompassing definition and delineation of characteristics of the Indigenous knowledge systems, I specialize to Indian Indigenous Knowledge Systems and throw some light on their diversity and significance for the world in general. I examine the concepts of individual and social development in Indian Knowledge Systems and endeavor to relate them to the need for sustainable development after following a few centuries of western knowledge systems. Why it is that life, which was sustainable for millennia, has now become so unsustainable to the extent that hundreds of species are going extinct every decade and problems of environmental pollution and global warming are making us sit up with danger alarms ringing continuously? What is the solution offered by the Indian knowledge systems in this situation for the world?