Artha-Sastra

Most of the stereotypical authors usually set the context to a subject with a DEFINITION.  Well, it's a stereotype. Our generation is known to break stereotypes. Let's consider Artha-Sastra as a story. A grand old story. A story that's been going on from ages and times. So, if Artha-Sastra is a story, who is the hero? Who are the villains? Who shall stand on the hero's side and who shall not? 

Before I jump into the layman definition of Artha-Sastra, I would like to throw some light on our Hero.
So I introduce our Hero- Wealth(Sanskrit word: Artha!)
Yes, Wealth. Wealth is the hero of Artha-Sastra. We talk about wealth everyday. But what is considered wealth? What can be included in the bag of wealth and what cannot be?
Layman Definition(LD-1): Wealth is anything which holds certain value. Any good or service which is material/non-material; tangible/intangible; physical/non-physical, that holds some importance in relevance to our lives is wealth.

Examples of material wealth: Money, Gold, Silver, Rice, Cars, Houses, Clothes, etc.,
Examples of non-material wealth: Good Health, Knowledge, Family, Relationships, Power, etc.,


Now, I hope you are well acquainted with our hero. Now let's step ahead.
So, how does wealth enter our story? How does it run the story? Where are all the twists in the story?
I know I've been posing too many questions as I go with the flow. I do that consciously. I do that coz, in this subject, the questions are as important or rather more important than the answers themselves. Only when we ask the right questions we make the right effort. Actually, it's true vice-versa too.


LD-2: Artha-Sastra / Economics usually is Production, Consumption and Transfer of WEALTH. Now that you know what is wealth, you will be able to grab a hold of what economics is.
Production, deals with how wealth is produced. It's self-explanatory.
Consumption and Transfer, deal with how wealth is acquired and how it is used/consumed by the consumers.


You might have noticed from the above lines, that the phrase: 'Goods and Services' has been used quite a few times in the definitions. Well, let's understand little deeper what that means to set up the context and sail further.

LD-3: Goods and Services : Simply put Goods are 'material' ; 'tangible' items of wealth. And Services are 'non-material' ; 'intangible' items of wealth. Goods are items that can be seen and touched, such as Money, Gold, Silver, Rice, Cars, Houses, Clothes, Salt, etc., Services are provided by other people, such as doctors, lawn care workers, dentists, barbers and waiters.