The integration of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) into
contemporary higher education is at once a paradigmatic shift and
a reassertion of epistemic agency. As education systems worldwide
recognize the necessity of decolonizing knowledge paradigms and
celebrating intellectual pluralism, India's civilizational heritage,
based in multilingual traditions, holistic philosophies, and
experiential modes of knowing, uniquely places it to spearhead
such a shift.
Indian indigenous knowledge is not primitive or marginal; it
is an in-depth, contextual, sophisticated, and ethically sound
epistemology that covers metaphysics, logic, medicine, politics,
arts, and ecological ethics. These are traditions fostered over
centuries in varied linguistic, regional, and oral forms that provide
integrative schemes rather than reductionist ones, and valuefounded logic rather than merely mechanistic thought. That holistic
quality makes IKS a system that combines intellectual rigor with
cultural and ethical context.