Anushasanika Parva — The rewards of gifts in this world and in the next

Yudhishthira said I wish to know fully, O Bharata, where one get the high reward of gifts and sacrifices. Are those rewards acquired here or hereafter? Which amongst these two (viz., Gift and Sacrifice) yields superior merit? To whom should gifts be made? In what manner are gifts and sacrifices to be made? When also are they to be made? I ask you this, O learned sire? Do you discourse to me on the duty of gifts!

Do you tell me, O grandfather, what brings on the highest reward, viz., gifts made from the sacrificial platform or those made out of that place?

Bhishma said O son, a Kshatriya is generally engaged in decds of fierceness. In his case, sacrifices and gifts, are considered as cleansing or sanctifying him.

The good and righteous, do not accept the gifts of persons of the royal order, who perpetrate sinful deeds. Therefore, the king should celebrate sacrifices with profuse gifts in the form of Dakshina.

If the good and righteous would accept the gifts made to them, the Kshatriya, O king, should continually make gifts with devotion and faith to them. Gifts yield great merit, and are highly cleansing.

Observing vows, one should celebrate sacrifices and please with wealth, such Brahmanas as are friends of all creatures, endued with righteousness, conversant of the Vedas, and pre-eminent for acts, conduct and penances.

If such Brahmanas do not accept your gifts, no merit will become yours. Do you celebrate sacrifices with profuse Dakshina, and make gifts of good and agreeable food to the righteous.

By making an act of gift you should consider yourself as performing a sacrifice. You should, with gifts, worship those Brahmanas who perform sacrifices. By doing this you will acquire a share in the merits of those sacrifices of theirs.

You should support such Brahmanas as have children and as are capable of sending people to heaven. By acting thus, you are sure to get a large progeny-in fact, as large a progeny as the Prajapati himself.

The righteous support and advance the cause of virtue. One should, by giving up his all, support such men as also those who do good to all creatures.

Yourself being rich, do you, Yudhishthira, make gifts to Brahmans of kine and bullocks and food and umbrellas and robes and sandals or shoes.

Do you give to sacrificing Brahmanas clarified butter as also food, and cars and vehicles with horses harnessed thereto, and dwelling houses and mansions and beds.

Such gifts yield prosperity and affluence to the giver, and are considered as pure, O Bharata. Those Brahmanas who are not censurable for anything they do, and who have no means of support assigned to them, should be found out.

Covertly or publicly, do you maintain such Brahmanas by giving to them the means of support. Such conduct always gives higher benefit to Kshatriyas than the Rajasuya and the Horse-Sacrifices.

Purged off of sin, you are sure of attaining to Heaven. Filling your treasury, you should do good to your kingdom.

By such conduct you are sure to acquire immense riches, and become a Brahman (in your next life). Do you, O Bharata, protect your own means as also the means of others people's livelihood.

Do you support your servants as your own children. Do you, O Bharata, protect the Brahmanas in the enjoyment of what they have and make gifts, to them of such articles as they have not.

Let your life be devoted to the Brahmanas. Let it never be said that you do not grant protection to the Brahmanas. Much wealth, when possessed by a Brahmana; becomes a source of evil to himn.

Constant association with riches and prosperity is sure to fill him with pride and cause him to be stupefied. If the Brahmanas become stupefied and steeped in folly., virtue and duties are sure to suffer destruction. Forsooth, if virtue and duty come to an end, it will lead to the destruction of all creatures.

That king who having amassed riches makes it over to his treasury officers and guards, and then begins to again plunder his kingdom, saying to his officers-Do you bring me as much riches as you can extort from the kingdom.

And who spends the riches that is thus collected at his behest under circumstances of fear and cruelty, in the performance of sacrifices, should know that those sacrifices of his, are never highly spoken of by the pious.

The king should celebrate scarifices with such money as is willingly paid to his treasury by prosperous and unpersecuted subjects. Sacrifices should never be celebrated with money got with severity and extortion.

The king should then celebrate great sacrifices with large presents in the shape of Dakshina, when on account of his being devoted to the behoof of his subjects the latter bathe him with copious showers of riches brought willingly by them for the purpose.

The king should protect the riches of those that are old, of those that are minors, of those that are blind, and of those that are otherwise disqualified. The king should never take any money from his people, if they, in a season of drought, succeed in growing any corn with the help of water obtained from wells. Nor should he take any wealth from weeping women.

The riches taken from the poor and the helpless is sure to destroy the kingdom and prosperity of the king. The king should always present to the righteous all enjoyable articles in abundance. He should certainly remove the fear of famishing which those men may have.

There are no men more sinful than those upon whose food children look wistfully without being able to eat them duly,

If within your kingdom any learned Brahinana dies with hunger like any of those children, you shall then incur the sin of focticide for having allowed such an act.

King Shivi himself had said this, viz.-Fie on that king in whose kingdom a Brahmana or even any other man starves.

That kingdom in which a Brahmana of the Snataka class starves, becomes overwhelmed with adversity. Such a kingdom with its king also incurs reproach.

That king is more dead than alive in whose kingdom women are easily abducted from their husbands and sons uttering cries and groans of indignation and grief.

The subjects should arm themselves for killing that king who does not protect them who simply plunders their riches, who confounds all distinctions who is incapable of taking their lead, who is without mercy, and who is considered as the most sinful of kings.

That king who tells his people that he is their protector but who does not or is unable to protect them, should be killed by his subjects in a body like a dog that is affected with the rabies and has become mad.

A fourth part of whatever sins are committed by the subjects visits that king who does not protect, О Bharata.

Some authorities say that the whole of those sins visits such a king. Others are of opinion that a half thereof visits him. Bearing in mind, However, the saying of Manu, it is our opinion that a fourth part of such sins visits the unprotecting king.

That king, O Bharata, O Bharata, who affords protection to his subjects gets fourth part of whatever merits his subjects win by living under his protection.

Do you, O Yudhishthira, act in such a way that all your subjects, may seek refuge with you as long as you are alive, as all creatures seek the refuge, of the god of rain or as the birds seek the refuge of a large tree.

Let all your kinsmen and all your friends and well-wishers, O scorcher of enemies, seek refuge with you as the Rakshasas seek Kubera or the gods seek Indra as theirs.