Draft Concluding Statement: On Ancient Wisdom for Modern Challenges

The Unity of Virtue in the Holy City of Varanasi

The following is a draft concluding statement from the World Symposium in Varanasi, India on "Ancient Wisdom for Modern Challenges." The World Symposium took place in Varanasi from November 2- 4, 2026.

A Setting to Inspire Humanity

The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) concludes the World Symposium, "Ancient Wisdom for Modern Challenges," with deep gratitude and with great confidence in the path ahead. For three days on the banks of the Ganga, in a city sacred to the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions, philosophers, religious leaders, scholars, and practitioners of sustainable development from every region of the world asked how the ethical wisdom of humanity's great civilizations can guide a world in urgent need of cooperation. The answer that emerged was clear, hopeful, and practical. The world's wisdom traditions share far more than divides them, and what they share can become the moral foundation of a peaceful and sustainable multipolar world.

Varanasi is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and the holiest city of Hinduism, traditionally said to have been founded by Lord Shiva and home to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple among thousands of sacred sites along the Ganges. At nearby Sarnath, the Buddha delivered his First Sermon, setting in motion the wheel of dharma by teaching the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. Varanasi is also a great pilgrimage site of Jainism and associated with the lives of several Jain Tirthankaras. Convening in Varanasi allows participants to draw inspiration from the living traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and from the unique spirituality of the city itself. This symposium was the fourth meeting of a series that began with two sessions in Greece, in Athens, Thessaloniki, and Stagira, the birthplace of Aristotle, and then continued in Qufu, the home of Confucius. In Varanasi the dialogue embraced the great ethical traditions of India, and it reached further still, drawing on African, Daoist, Zen, Cambodian Theravada, and Catholic sources.

What the Symposium Concluded

Across seven panels, ranging from the architecture of the good life to governance, artificial intelligence, the limits of power and the ecological crisis, several conclusions emerged with remarkable consistency.

First, the world’s great wisdom traditions converge on the virtues. Though they differ on deep questions of metaphysics, on God, the self and the destiny of the soul, they agree to a striking degree on what makes a good human life and a good society: practical wisdom, justice, courage, self-restraint, compassion, truthfulness and humility. The five yamas of the Yoga Sutras, the five great vows of the Jains and the five precepts of the Buddhists, which correspond closely to the virtues of Aristotle and Confucius, offered a vivid demonstration.

Second, harmony does not require uniformity. The Confucian ideal of harmony without sameness, the Vedic teaching that truth is one though the wise call it by many names, and the Jain doctrine of the many-sidedness of truth all point to an order in which diversity is the condition of concord.

Third, the self is constituted by its relationships, with other persons, with past and future generations, and with the living world, so that the flourishing of one cannot be separated from the flourishing of all.

Fourth, good governance depends on good character. Rules, laws and institutions are indispensable, yet they do not apply themselves. They require leaders and citizens of cultivated judgment.

Fifth, wisdom ranks above wealth. A civilization that measures progress by output alone has mistaken the means for the end.

Sixth, the restraint of power is the virtue our time most urgently requires. From Ashoka's renunciation of conquest to the Daodejing's counsel that the great state should take the modest position, the traditions teach that peace among nations rests on restraint, justice and mutual respect.

A Success for the Series and for the World

The symposium brought the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions fully into a dialogue that had begun with Greece and China and showed that they confirm the convergence on virtue in the clearest possible way. It demonstrated that a global virtue ethics is neither a Western export nor a vague aspiration, but a body of shared practical wisdom, East and West, North and South, that can be articulated and applied to the conduct of persons, of governments and of states. And it built friendships among scholars and traditions that will carry the work forward.

Implications as New UN Leadership Begins

The symposium concludes at a moment of great consequence for the United Nations, and therefore for all humanity, in view of the importance of the UN for our survival and wellbeing. A new UN Secretary-General will take office on 1 January 2027, and the member states are preparing to shape the global agenda that will follow the Sustainable Development Goals after 2030. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 was the first great expression of humanity's shared moral commitments in the governance of the world. The task of the coming years is to complete that work with a shared global virtue ethics, a common understanding of the virtues of statecraft that every civilization can recognize as its own.

The SDSN will share the results of the Varanasi symposium with the new leadership of the United Nations and with all member states as a contribution to that task. We believe that the incoming Secretary-General will find in the convergence of the world's wisdom traditions a powerful resource for renewing multilateral cooperation, for guiding the governance of artificial intelligence and other powerful technologies, for advancing sustainable development, and above all for securing peace among the great powers. The SDSN will carry this work forward in the post-2030 deliberations, together with partners including the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, and through the continuation of this series, which we hope will bring the Abrahamic traditions, the African traditions and the Indigenous traditions of the Americas and the Pacific to the same table.

Our Gratitude

The SDSN expresses its profound gratitude to the Adani Group, whose generous partnership through the Adani Foundation made the symposium possible. The Adani Group's commitment to this dialogue, expressed so warmly by Dr. Priti Adani, Chairperson of the Adani Foundation, in her address at the opening session, reflects a farsighted understanding that the challenges of our age are moral as well as economic and technological, and that India has a special contribution to make to their resolution.

The SDSN is also grateful to the Government of India, notably the Ministry of Culture, for its co-partnership and for the honor of its welcome. The address of Shri Vivek Aggarwal, Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, set the symposium within India's civilizational heritage of dialogue among faiths. We also thank TERI, The Energy and Resources Institute, whose expert organization and logistical support ensured that every session ran smoothly and that every participant was welcomed with care. Lastly, we thank the people of Varanasi for their hospitality, and the chairs, speakers, and participants whose scholarship and goodwill gave the symposium its substance and its spirit.

The holy city of Varanasi has witnessed many great dialogues across the millennia. The SDSN is profoundly honored that this symposium has joined that tradition, and we look forward with hope and determination to the work ahead: building, together with all the world's peoples and traditions, a shared ethics for a world at peace and prosperity.