Ancient Wisdom, Modern Investments: The Rigveda’s Message For Mutual Funds

However, India's low penetration of mutual funds remains a challenge as the country strides towards its 2047 aspirations. The responsibility lies with all stakeholders to foster growth and inclusion, ensuring that mutual funds become a more integral part of India's financial future

“sangacchadhwam samvadadhwam sam vo manaansi jaanataam” -Rigveda (10.181.2)

Translation: ‘Let’s walk together in harmony, let’s speak together in symphony. Towards one objective, let us chart the route of our minds’ journey.’

I will come to the second verse of 181st hymn in the tenth book of the Rigveda a bit later. When asked about his lecture, Mark Twain replied, “There’s nothing new in it. I’ve borrowed every word and every letter from this book”- and he held up a dictionary. This wittiness and humbleness can only come from a person of Twain’s stature. Twain’s humour and humility apart, he poked fun at the idea of creativity and originality. How true and honest he was! The fact remains that everyone borrows from the shared resources and reproduces with different permutations and combinations. This reminds me a line from a poem by Harivansh Rai Bachchan.

“Kya Kiya Maine Nahin Jo, Kar Chuka Sansar Ab Tak?” (What have I done that the world has not already done.)

With all my humility, I echo the views expressed by Mark Twain and Harivansh Rai Bachchan. Nothing new exists in any of the fifty-one ‘Nivesh Sutras’ published so far. At the most, I can claim to have rephrased and re-presented the age-old wisdoms in a different form. If these articles have benefited anyone, the credit goes to the various contributors who have painstakingly translated the ‘Sutras’ from Hindi to English and explained them. While going through the contents, I came across many illustrations, I haven’t been through before. My heartfelt thanks to all my colleagues, friends, and family members.

The aim of all ‘Nivesh Sutras’ has been to break-down the so-called complexities/ jargons of investments through simple language and identifiable analogy and demystify many myths surrounding them. Though not intended, many times it appears the contents are skewed towards Mutual Fund investments, the simple reason being all the contributors are Mutual Fund investors and many of them are Mutual Fund employees.

Mutual Fund investments, per se, have always attracted me due to their commonality. It always reminded me of the verse from Sanskrit referred to above which is part of Sunday Prayer in my family. The referred Sanskrit verse encapsulates the concept of Mutual Funds. With a bit of stretch on my imagination, this would be more proper to say that Massachusetts Investors Trust might have been inspired by this verse of Rigveda while launching a Mutual Fund in 1924. As Indians, we always trace everything good to our glorious past. And why not? We have such an illustrious and inspiring

history.

Well, it’s not my purpose to find what inspires Mutual Funds or the evolution of the mutual fund Industry, but certainly what fancies my ingenuity is the inclusive nature of the investment vehicle called Mutual Funds. At the cost of evoking a sense of déjà vu, I produce below the definition of Mutual Fund:

“Mutual Fund is a pool of money collected from the public to be invested to realise the specific objective of the investors.”

What could be a better driver of commonality that humanity has been striving for? Once the pool is created, all unitholders are equal. There are no preferred, less preferred, or non-preferred investors in Mutual Funds. Gain or loss arising out of the underlying investments are equally shared amongst all the unitholders. There could be investors with hundreds of crores of rupees and there could be an SIP investor with Rs 500 per month. They all are equal once they have agreed to pool their money in a scheme for a common stated objective.

However, the challenge remains the low penetration of Mutual Funds in India. Barely 5 crores out of appropriately 140 crores Indians are MF investors. It works out to be below 4 per cent. As India aspires to be a developed economy by 2047, MF penetration also requires keeping pace in line with developed economies. All stakeholders, government, regulators, distributors, AMCs, AMFI, etc must contribute towards this goal. Finally, I would like to close with a verse from ‘Vrihadaranyak Upnishad’ which can be the goal of humanity, and financially, Mutual Fund can be one of the means to this end.

“Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah, Sarve santu Niramayah. Sarve Bhadraani Pashyantu, Ma Kashchid Dukh Bhaag Bhavet.” (May all be happy, may all be healthy, may

all see good, and may

none suffer.)

(The writer is Executive Vice President, SBI Funds Management Ltd based out of Mumbai)