Gold Is Old: Noble Metal in the Indian Economy Through Ages

Satish Deodhar

Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers, 2023, vol. 48, issue 3, 175-188

Abstract: Indians have had a fascination for possessing gold since ancient times. I document the sacredness of gold, ancient references to jewellery, gold extraction and minting technology, its function as money and store of value, and specie inflow due to trade surplus with the Occident up until the medieval era. India’s gargantuan stock of about 28,000 tonnes of gold is hoarding and not savings. Today, gold demand is causing leakage from the circular flow of gross domestic product and trade deficit. Policy suggestions are made that will re-channel idle excess stock of gold into financial markets, reduce the trade deficit and contribute to gross domestic product growth.

Keywords: Ancient India; Arthashastra; Kautilya; Coins; Artefacts; and Gold Museum; Financial Savings and Re-channeling of Gold; Gold Monetization Scheme (GMS); India's Gold Imports and Jewellery Exports; Jataka Tales and Mahabharata; Vedas; Upanishads; Sanskrit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02560909231202362 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:vikjou:v:48:y:2023:i:3:p:175-188

DOI: 10.1177/02560909231202362

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().