Dhanteras-Significance, Myths and Returns from Gold

Saturday,3^rd November 2018,

This Year Dhanteras or the festival of wealth falls on Monday 5^th of November 2018.It is again the time of the year when people will go berserk over Gold and Silver, without really understanding the significance of the festival and the reason why we have been celebrating wealth.

The word “Dhanteras” is derived from Sanskrit word “DHAN” meaning wealth and “TERAS” which refers to the 13^th day of the hindu calendar month. It is a festival which celebrates DHAN or wealth.According to Hindu scriptures Dhanvantri, the God of Ayurveda is also worshipped on Dhanteras.It seems Dhanteras celebrates both Health and Wealth, thereby validating the proverb “Health Is Wealth”.

Significance-

Dhanteras is celebrated in honour of Goddess Lakshmi. According to Hindu Scriptures Goddess Lakshmi came out of the ocean during “Sagar Manthan” on Dhantrayodashi and since then Goddess Lakshmi is worshipped , along with Lord Kuber on this day.

As per Wikipedia ,an ancient legend ascribes the occasion to an interesting story about the 16-year-old son of King Hima. His horoscope predicted his death by snake-bite on the fourth day of his marriage. On that particular day, his newly-wed wife did not allow him to sleep. She laid out all her ornaments and lots of gold and silver coins in a heap at the entrance of the sleeping chamber and lit lamps all over the place. Then she narrated stories and sang songs to keep her husband from falling asleep. The next day, when Yama, the god of Death arrived at the prince's doorstep in the guise of a serpent, his eyes were dazzled and blinded by the brilliance of the lamps and the jewellery. Yama could not enter the Prince's chamber, so he climbed on top of the heap of gold coins and sat there the entire night listening to the stories and songs. In the morning, he silently went away. Thus, the young prince was saved from the clutches of death by the cleverness of his new bride, and the day came to be celebrated as Dhanteras.

Myths-

Gold, Silver as wealth –

In ancient times, Gold Silver and Precious metals were considered wealth , and much earlier to that time the Nenderthals must have considered stone tools as wealth. The definition of wealth keeps on changing with time. Since historically Bullion has been considered as wealth a lot of us still take it as such a lot of metal purchase takes place on Dhanteras .Wealth can be anything that makes us wealthy, and not necessarily Gold and Silver.Over a period of last 10 years equities have given much better returns than Gold or Silver etc and hence it has been the actual wealth creator.

Let us understand this through an example,

If a person invested ` 10,000/- each Dhanteras from 2008 to 2017, in Gold ,silver and Aditya Birla SunLife Equity Fund (an open ended multicap fund), he would have invested a total of ` 1,20,000/- in each asset class. Investment in Gold would have earned him an annualized return of 6.23%,silver investment would have earned annualized returns of 1.62% whereas Investment in Aditya Birla SunLife Equity Fund would have earned him a bewildering 15.26%.

(Please refer to the table attached)

So , Now its for you to decide how you plan to create your Dhan on “Dhanteras”.

Let us help you create wealth , in the right way-the equity way.

Celebrate Dhanteras and start you SIP in Equity Mutual Funds right now.

Rohit Jain (Bhansali)

Rubicon Finservices

Data Source-Gold and silver price- https://www.goldpriceindia.com

Mutual Fund NAV- https://www.camsonline.com