Dharma Index & Dharma Endowment Fund
Can our systems reflect the values we claim matter?
The Question Behind the Project
Many people think deeply about ethics in their personal lives. They consider questions of responsibility, purpose and the impact of their choices. Yet modern systems often separate those values from the environments where some of the most consequential decisions are made. Finance is one example.
Economic life influences organisations, communities and the direction of society itself. The question is whether financial systems can consider not only what creates value, but what kind of value is being created.
For Nitesh, this question emerged through his own experience in investment banking and business. It raised a wider inquiry that appears throughout his work: Should our material and spiritual lives operate according to entirely different principles?
The Idea in Practice
The Dharma Index and Dharma Endowment Fund emerged from an exploration of how dharmic principles might inform financial thinking.
Rather than treating finance as separate from questions of ethics, responsibility and human consequence, the work considered whether deeper values could influence how capital is understood and directed.
The project reflects a broader idea within Vedic thought: that different areas of life are interconnected, and that wisdom should not remain isolated from practical decisions.
Business, economics and institutions are not separate from human development. They are expressions of the priorities and assumptions we choose to organise around.
Continuing Work
The Dharma Index and Dharma Endowment Fund continue this exploration of how principles can move from philosophy into practical systems.
They represent an ongoing attempt to examine the relationship between prosperity, responsibility and the wider consequences of economic activity.
Project Details
Area: Finance & ethics
Role: Co-founder
Initiatives: Dharma Index; Dharma Endowment Fund
Origin: Developed following work in investment banking and business education
Today: Dharma Endowment Fund launched with approx. $10m AUM