30 - On bestowing Gifts 

The lord said: 

1-2. Listen O Garuda, I shall explain to you the best of all gifts which when rendered with the mantra bhūḥ, bhuvah, svah¹ delight the sages and Gods-Shiva, Indra, etc. 

1. bhu bruh svah: The three mystical syllables prefixed to the Gayatri mantra. 

3-4. This great gift should be given for redeeming the ghosts. He who offers it will stay in Rudraloka² for a long time and then be born as a king. He will be endowed with comely features, good fortune, fluency in speech, all riches and unparalleled valour. Leaving off Yama's region he will go to heaven. 

2. Rudraloka—The region of Shiva covering the Kailasa and the adjoining mountains. 

5. He who makes a gift of gingelly seeds, cow, plot of land or gold to a worthy brahmin will have his sins, accruing in different births, instantaneously quelled. 

6. Gingelly seeds and cows constitute the major gifts and they quell all major sins. The two should be given Only to a brahmin and never to a member of any other caste. 

7. Gingelly seeds, cow, plot of land are given to brahmins after the rite of sankalpa¹. They are not given to the people of other castes. Sometimes, they are given to dependents also. 

1. Sankalpa-a solemn vow to perform an observance. 

8. Whenever a gift is made to dependents or to women, it is done without the rite of sankalpa. Whenever a person is in death-bed or when there is an eclipse, all kinds of gifts should be made. 

9. When someone is in the death bed it is better to make the gifts before the life is extinct. A gift made when one is alive stands in good stead, unimpeded. 

10. It is truth, the exact truth that the gifts made when the sense-organs are operative and when the same are approved by his son yield endless benefits. 

11. During the period of sickness, when the body is lying on the ground and during transport he will have no trouble. 

12. When the person is in the deathbed with eyes half closed, the gift of gingelly seeds along with kusha grass to the lame, the blind and the one-eyed yields an imperishable fruit. 

13. Gingelly seeds, iron, gold, cotton, salt, seven grains, plot of land and cow each constitutes a holy gift. 

14. The gift of iron and gingelly seeds pleases Yama. The gift of salt wards off fear from Yama. 

15. The gift of cotton wards off danger from the ghost. Cows gifted away enable the giver to cross all difficulties and save him from the threefold affliction². 

2. Threefold affliction: ådhyātmika-caused by the mind (sorrow, etc), ádhudaivika-caused by fate (pain etc). adhibhautika-caused by living beings. 

16. The gift of gold yields happiness in heaven. By gifting a plot of land one is born as a king. If one gifts gold and plot of land one shall never experience any torture or distress in hell. 

17. The emissaries of Yama who are as terrific in appearance as Yama himself bestow boons is gists of seven grains are made and they are satiated. 

18. By remembering Vişhnu, one attains the highest goal. Thus, I have told you all about the goal attainable by the mortals. 

19. If the son on seeing his father lying on the ground with the eyes half-closed makes gifts with the consent of his father, he is honoured by the gods. 

20. At the time when the father is in the deathbed, the gifts made by the son exceed the merit one earns by performing a Śhräddha at Gayà. The son prospers and thereby pleases his family. 

21. The father being dead, the sons should perform the obsequial rites devotedly. Thus, they can make their father cross the ocean of distress. 

22. What avail the abundance of charitable deeds. Enough that he performs the funeral rites of his father. Even the horse sacrifice¹  does not merit a sixteenth part of the merit accruing from all these. 

1. ashvamedha-a sacrifice wherein a house is let lose for a year, to wander at will and followed by an army of brave warriors. Whosoever offers resistance is either killed or subdued. The horse, however, returns to thic place of sacrifice, at the end of the year and is ultimately sacrificed. The ceremony entitles the sacrificer and the horse to an abode in heaven. 

23. The son who makes gifts in favour of his father who is lying ill in death-bed is honoured even by the gods. 

24. The father should make gifts of iron with his hands fixed in the ground. The giver of gifts never finds Yama terrific. I le will not go to his abode even. 

25. Dagger, iron club, baton, sword and lancet are the weapons in the hands of Yama to curb sinners. 

26. Hence, gifts of weapons shall be made. For, this gift is for the propriation of Yama's weapons. 

27. A child in the womb, infant in the arms, young men or old men can burn off their sins by means of these gifts. 

28. The different emissaries of Yama-Churinas, Shandas, Markas, Udumbaras are delighted by gifts of iron. 

29. Sons, grandsons, kinsmen, clansmen, friends, wives, etc. of those who do not make such gifts are no better than the slayers of brahmins. 

30. Listen to the course of a man dying on the earth. The first stage is that of Ativāha (the subtle body in transit); then that of ghost; then at the end of a year that of a pitru. 

31. There are three fires, three worlds, three Vedas, three deities, three times, three junctures, three Varņas and three powers. 

32-33. Brahmä presides over the body of a man from the foot to the hips. Vişhnu presides over the body from the umbilicus to the neck. The manifest and the unmanifest deity Śhiva in the form of Rudra is stationed on the head. The deities Brahma, Vişhnu and Shiva are only the different aspects of the same godhead. 

34. I am the vital air stationed inside the body of living beings. Considering the inclination of the living being as actualed by the actions of his previous birth, I mould the mind and divert it to virtue or evil, joy or sorrow, or things done or undone. 

35. It is I who induce their activities. By actions life attains heaven, hell or salvation. 

36. The prosperity of man, consigned to heaven or hell, is possible through Shrāddhas. Hence, people shall assiduously perform different kinds of Shrāddhas. 

37. The names of the ten incarnations of the lord, viz Matsya (fish), Kūrma (tortoise), Varaha (boar), Narasimha, Shrirama, Parśhurāma, Krişhņa, Balarama, Buddha and Kalki shall be remembered always. 

38. He will be posted in heaven. After enjoying the pleasures therein when he is born again on the Earth, he will enjoy riches.¹ He will be endowed with the qualities of mercy and chivalry. He will have sons and grandsons. He will live for a hundred years. 

1. Bhagavadgita VI. 41. 

39. He should offer gifts to the needy and adore Vişhnu with the requisite Nyasas¹ or repeat the mantras of eight syllables² or twelve syllables.³ 

1. Nyasa-touching the limbs of the body with the hand accompanied by appropriate mantras. 

2. Mantra of eight syllables-Om namo Vasudevaya

3. Mantra of twelve syllables-Om namo bhagavate Vasudevaya 

40. White flowers should be offered in worship together with food offerings cooked in ghee. Frequent incenses and scents should be offered and hymns from the Vedas, Smrutis such as of Manu should be recited. 

41. Vişhnu is mother, Vişhnu is father. Vişhnu is kinsman. If I do not see Vişhnu nothing is of any consequence to me. 

42. Vishņu is on earth. Vişhnu is in water. Vişhnu is on the mountain. Vişhnu is in fiery flames. Everything identifiable in the universe is with Vişhnu. 

43. I am the waters. I am the Earth. I am the darbha grass. I am the gingelly seeds. I am the cows. I am the subjects. 

44. I am gold. I am grains. I am honey. I am ghee. I ain brahmins. I am deities. I am Shiva. I am mantras: bhuḥ, bhuvaḥ, svaḥ. 

45. I am the giver. I am the taker. I am the sacrificer. I am the sacrifice. I am the remover. I am virtue, earth and water. 

46. O bird, I divert a man's mind to virtue or evil through auspicious and inauspicious activities. Whatever man does is actuated by the actions of his previous birth. 

47. It is I who induce thoughts of virtue. It is Yama who induces thoughts of evil. It is I who induce thoughts of ascetics towards virtue. It is I who accord salvation. 

48. O Garuda, the river Vaitarani is beneficent to men of virtue. After dispelling all sins the virtuous man goes to Vişhnu's region. 

49-51. If one makes a gift of a brown cow which grants all wishes, one is freed from all sins the sins committed in infancy, childhood or youth, in previous births, during nights or mornings, middays or afternoons, at dusk or dawn whether it is by means of action, thought or speech. 

52. May cows remain in front of me, may cows remain behind me, may cows remain ever in my heart. I reside in the midst of cows. May the splendour of all living beings, the splendour present in deities remove my sins. May Lakşhmi assume the form of a cow and dispel my sins.