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Battle of Lakshmi and Saraswati

The document discusses the relationship between Lakshmi (the goddess of wealth) and Saraswati (the goddess of knowledge). It argues that Saraswati, which represents imagination and skills, is needed to obtain and maintain wealth represented by Lakshmi. Inherited wealth is the only case where Lakshmi comes without Saraswati. In all other cases, various forms of knowledge and skills provided by Saraswati are necessary to generate, sustain, and increase wealth over time through activities like farming, crafts, business, and more. True wisdom that cannot be taught is also important to understand the impermanence of fortunes and prepare for future challenges.
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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
96 views3 pages

Battle of Lakshmi and Saraswati

The document discusses the relationship between Lakshmi (the goddess of wealth) and Saraswati (the goddess of knowledge). It argues that Saraswati, which represents imagination and skills, is needed to obtain and maintain wealth represented by Lakshmi. Inherited wealth is the only case where Lakshmi comes without Saraswati. In all other cases, various forms of knowledge and skills provided by Saraswati are necessary to generate, sustain, and increase wealth over time through activities like farming, crafts, business, and more. True wisdom that cannot be taught is also important to understand the impermanence of fortunes and prepare for future challenges.
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Battle of Lakshmi and

Saraswati
by Devdutt Pattanaik

Published in Corporate
Dossier, ET, Septemeber
27, 2013

We have grown up being told


Lakshmi (goddess of wealth)
and Saraswati (goddess of
knowledge) always fight and
avoid staying in the same
place. This is based on the
observation that rich
businessmen tend to be
uneducated (both Bill Gates
and Steve Jobs were college
dropouts, we are repeatedly
told) and educated people
tend to be poor (the eternally groaning and abused middle class). This is also based on
the assumption that Saraswati is the goddess of education, learning and training. This
understanding of Saraswati is rather pedestrian, and lacks insight.

The word Saraswati stems from the Sanskrit root ‘saras’ which means that which is fluid
and can be either contained in a lake (sarovar) and made to flow as in a river (sarita). It
refers to imagination, the one faculty that separates man from beasts. Yes, one can
argue, dolphins do imagine, as do apes but nothing in the human scale.

Human imagination is what enables humans to envisage future problems, hence


innovate, invent, and most critically pass on learning from one generation to another, a
trait not seen in any other animal. Every human generation thrives by taking advantage
of knowledge gained in the past. So there is continuous skill and knowledge
upgradation in the human species which accounts for human civilization. One
generation discovered how to control fire, another discovered how to control plants
hence invented agriculture, another discovered the wheel, another discovered
electricity, another the microchip and these have changed how we live. We may have
the same genetic structure as our ancestors a hundred thousand years ago, but we live
very different lifestyles, all thanks to imagination. If there was no imagination, we would
never have a hypothesis and hence would never reach a thesis.

Inherited wealth and lottery are the only cases where Lakshmi comes without
Saraswati. A rich uncle dies and leaves behind a fortune for us. This is luck. We win in a
casino. That is luck. We can call it the result of some past life karma or the grace of
God.

But in all other cases, we need Saraswati to get Lakshmi. Saraswati is all kinds of
knowledge and skills. The better knowledge you have, the better skills you have, the
more likelihood of you generating wealth. So the farmer grows food because he knows
how to farm. A craftsman creates valuable products because he has knowledge of a
craft.

Saraswati is needed not just to generate wealth but also to retain wealth. So unless the
farmer and the craftsmen have business acumen, they lose their generated wealth.
They need to have knowledge of marketing and sales. They need to develop financial
skills or have the knowledge of partnering with people with financial skills. A trader
needs Saraswati, a banker needs Saraswati, even a housewife needs Saraswati – the
knowledge and skill to distribute her money to satisfy all household needs and wants,
both short term and long term.

We narrow Saraswati to knowledge received in schools. But until the British came to
India we did not have schools in the modern sense of the term. We functioned using the
apprentice model. The potter passed on Saraswati of pottery to his sons, the mother
passed on Saraswati of cooking to her daughters. The better the Saraswati, the more
successful the potter and the housewife.

Saraswati thus has many forms – knowledge and skills that we can pass on through
schooling and apprenticeship is the most prominent of them. But the one form of
Saraswati that cannot be passed on is wisdom. Wisdom cannot be inherited or
bequeathed. It has to be generated through reflection or tapasya.
Absence of wisdom is evident when Lakshmi comes, and we don’t value Saraswati as
much. We feel we have magically generated wealth and it will stay with us magically.
Someone who is truly a student of Saraswati will know that fortunes are never
permanent and we have to work towards preparing for future crises. A famous software
company was so busy harvesting wealth from the market focussing on compliance that
it did not bother to create a talent pipeline and so naturally faced a leadership crises
when market conditions changed. A case of assuming there is a limit to Saraswati.

In fortune we don’t trust home grown knowledge and believe knowledge exists only in
formal schools and colleges, a common problem seen in small and medium sized family
businesses across India who are sending their children to Europe and America to earn
business degrees and find that the children either do not want to return home, or look
down upon their family business (not fortune) as full of terrible practices. They reject
family brick and mortar businesses and seek opportunities in the safe international
world of the internet.

There is a folk adage: in good times Lakshmi walks towards us and Saraswati moves
away from us while in bad times Saraswati walks towards us and Lakshmi moves away
from us. The trick is to focus on Saraswati at both times. In boom times, she teaches us
how to ensure sustainable growth. In bust time, she teaches us how to reverse our
situation and make our way from misfortune towards fortune. Lakshmi or no Lakshmi,
we always need Saraswati if we wish to survive or thrive.

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