Financial Accounting, Class - I
Net-Worth, defined as The Total assets minus total liabilities of an individual entity.
Assets, defined as any tangible or intangible economic resource.
Liability, defines as any present and/or future sacrifice of economic benefit.
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Don't worry, I am not writing any Financial Accounting Essay or paper. I couldn't find a better way to open the topic. But anyways, this is how Net-Worth is defined in today's world. Practically, it is the organization's or person's 'Value' at present. Needless to say, we give a lot of importance to Net-Worth of an entity. Importance given to entity is directly proportional to its Net-Worth.
Talking more specifically (and sarcastically too), sometimes, this importance is directly proportional to the higher powers of Net-Worth. (Yes, you are correct, I am talking about squares and cubes). Wars of Net-Worth Rankings are very well enjoyed by spectators and competitors as well.
Recently, I happened to read that the Total Net-Worth of all the people of the world is $241 Trillion and that all the world's wealth converted to $100 notes would stack up to 3/4th of the distance between the earth and the moon. Fascinating, isn't it. But have we really considered all the people's all of the wealth yet ? Let's try to find an answer.
The 5000 year old existence of 'Saraswati' Civilization, also popularly called 'Sindhu' Civilization has been proved many times. The same is also considered as the 'Vedic' Period, dominated by Aryans. This was the time when the 'Vedas', which are foundations of Hindu Culture, were formed. The 'Vedas' are the inexhaustible sources of knowledge. Knowledge, that was devised, researched, experimented, formulated and applied for over centuries. We are trying to find answer to our question in this Hindu Culture only.
Hindus believe in the existence of three chief gods - Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh. Each of them is associated with one important function of this universe. Brahma is associated with "Creation", Vishnu is associated with "Nurturing" and Mahesh is associated with "Destroying". It is this philosophy of Hinduism which make them believe that whatever exists, has been created, nurtured and will finally be destroyed. But guess what, we are not interested in the three chief gods. We are actually interested in the the three Chief Goddesses.The three chief goddesses associated with three chief gods are - Saraswati, Lakshmi and Durga. Let us try to understand the appearance of each of them.
Goddess Durga has many hands. In most of the hands, she holds weapons. She is riding a tiger or lion. This makes her look ferocious and look like goddess of War or destruction. Trying to understand the implications of this appearance, she is like a mother who is ready to protect her children from any dangers. Her many hands represent the many fold responsibilities borne by a mother in a regular Indian family. Additionally, there are other forms of Durga which are worshiped as Goddess of Food (Shakambari) and Goddess of Water (Shatakshi). The very commonly worshiped form, Annapoorna, is also another representation of Durga. So, even though goddess Durga, on the first look, appears ferocious, she is a motherly figure for many. She is a representation of the fraternity seen in any family. As it can be seen, a home where members of family are living happily with each other and there is very good level of fraternity, is considered culturally rich in India and this richness is considered as good net worth. Going beyond, this net worth also includes one's friends and relatives as one of the major assets. So this is the first aspect of Net worth considered the Indian way - Fraternity in a family.
Goddess Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth and prosperity. Her appearance depicts her as the goddess who is showering prosperity in the form of gold and gems, onto her devotees. Diwali, the major festival of India, is actually Lakshmi-Poojan, or worshiping of goddess Lakshmi. Apparently, Lakshmi is worshiped in all the places of business, shops, showrooms, offices and what not. This clearly resembles the wealth in the form of money, but for all you know, this form of net worth is very well recognized by everyone today.
Lastly, Goddess Saraswati, the goddess of Knowledge. Knowledge, the cognizance about the world around you. Knowledge is the ultimate goal one can strive for. Knowledge is quest one has pursue to achieve this goal. It is a highest level of gratification any mortal can experience. In fact, it takes considerable knowledge, just to realize the extent of one's ignorance. A simple analogy can help understand this better. Past few years of developments in Astronomy has made us believe that there exists something like 'Dark Matter', which cannot be seen, observed or touched. Just its effect can be observed. What universe we see (observable universe) is merely 5% of total mass of universe that exists. We know that we don't know some of the dark secrets of the universe, but beside that, we don't know that we don't know so much darker about universe.
So this knowledge which is the path towards the goal, which in itself is knowledge, being the highest form of gratification, represents the highest level of wealth any individual can have. And that is exactly observed by networth way followed by Ancient India. I find this a more comprehensive way of finding net worth, as it includes all the needs of an individual, and gives importance to not only individual's business/professional image but also respects him/her as a person, as a human being and more so, as the bearer of great knowledge !
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