In Praise of Generosity-From The Rig Veda (Hymn: 10.117)

This hymn, which seems constructed at least in part out of aphorisms, exhorts the worshipper to be generous, both to the gods (through sacrifice) and to the poet (through patronage), as well as to mankind in general. There is also a self-serving level to the advice: Fortune is fickle, and the man to whom you give now may have given to you in the past, and may do so again.

• The gods surely did not ordain hunger alone for slaughter;1 various deaths reach the man who is well-fed. The riches of the man who gives fully do not run out, but the miser finds no one with sympathy.

• The man with food who hardens his heart against the poor man who comes to him suffering and searching for nourish-ment – though in the past he had made use of him2 – he surely finds no one with sympathy.

• The man who is truly generous gives to the beggar who approaches him thin and in search of food. He puts himself at the service of the man who calls to him from the road, and makes him a friend for times to come.

• That man is no friend who does not give of his own nourishment to his friend, the companion at his side. Let the friend turn away from him; this is not his dwelling-place. Let him find another man who gives freely, even if he be a stranger.

• Let the stronger man give to the man whose need is greater; let him gaze upon the lengthening path3. For riches roll like the wheels of a chariot, turning from one to another.

© "The Rig Veda - An Anthology" translated by Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, published by Penguin Books India (P) Limited, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017. Reprinted with permission.

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