RT030X_Prelims.fm Page i Wednesday, November 24, 2004 8:20 PM RELIGION IN HISTORY, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE Edited by Frank Reynolds and Winnifred Fallers Sullivan The University of Chicago, Divinity School A ROUTLEDGE SERIES RT030X_Prelims.fm Page ii Wednesday, November 24, 2004 8:20 PM RELIGION IN HISTORY, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE FRANK REYNOLDS AND WINNIFRED FALLERS SULLIVAN General Editors LAS ABEJAS HEAVENLY JOURNEYS, EARTHLY CONCERNS Pacifist Resistance and Syncretic The Legacy of the Mi’raj in the Identities in a Globalizing Chiapas Formation of Islam Marco Tavanti Brooke Olson Vuckovic THE SPIRIT OF DEVELOPMENT LEST WE BE DAMNED Protestant NGOs, Morality, and Practical Innovation and Lived Economics in Zimbabwe Experience among Catholics in Erica Bornstein Protestant England, 1559-1642 Lisa McClain EXPLAINING MANTRAS Ritual, Rhetoric, and the Dream THE FOX’S CRAFT IN JAPANESE RELIGION of a Natural Language AND FOLKLORE Robert A. Yelle Shapeshifters, Transformations and Duplicities LITURGY WARS Michael Bathgate Ritual Theory and Protestant Reform in Nineteenth-Century Zurich STEEL CITY GOSPEL Theodore M. Vial Protestant Laity and Reform in Progressive-Era Pittsburgh Keith A. Zahniser RT030X_FM 11/12/04 8:29 AM Page iii THEORIES OF THE GIFT IN SOUTH ASIA Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Reflections on Dana Maria Heim ROUTLEDGE New York & London RT030X_Prelims.fm Page iv Friday, January 7, 2005 11:24 AM Published in 2004 by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016 www.routledge-ny.com Published in Great Britain by Routledge 2 Park Square Milton Park, Abingdon Oxon OX14 4RN U.K. www.routledge.co.uk Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group. Copyright © 2004 by Taylor & Francis Books, Inc. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Heim, Maria, 1969- Theories of the gift in South Asia : Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain reflections on da na / by Maria Heim. p. cm. — (Religion in history, society, and culture ; v. 9) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-415-97030-X (alk. paper) 1. Religious ethics—South Asia. 2. Generosity—Religious aspects. 3. Hindu giving. 4. Buddhist giving. 5. Jaina giving. I. Title. II. Series: Religion in history, society & culture; 9. BJ123.G46H45 2004 394—dc22 2004016252 RT030X_Prelims.fm Page v Wednesday, November 24, 2004 8:20 PM For my parents RT030X_Prelims.fm Page vi Wednesday, November 24, 2004 8:20 PM RT030X_bookTOC.fm Page vii Thursday, November 25, 2004 2:25 PM Contents Abbreviations ix Series Editors’ Foreword xi Acknowledgments xiii Introduction xv Chapter One: Sources 1 Chapter Two: The Donor 33 Chapter Three: The Recipient 57 Chapter Four: The Ritual 83 Chapter Five: The Gift 111 Conclusion 141 Notes 149 Bibliography 167 Index 185 vii RT030X_bookTOC.fm Page viii Thursday, November 25, 2004 2:25 PM RT030X_C00.fm Page ix Wednesday, November 24, 2004 9:55 PM ABBREVIATIONS LISTED BY TRADITION Dharmaśāstra DK Dānakāa of the Ktyakalpataru of Lakmīdhara (Book on Gift Giving in the Wish-fulfilling Tree of Duties) DKh Dānakhaa of the Caturvargacintāmai of Hemādri (Volume on Gift Giving in the Wish-fulfilling Gem of the Four Aims of Human Life) DS Dānasāgara of Ballālasena (Sea of Giving) MĀ Mitākarā of Vijñāneśvara YSA Aparārka’s commentary on Yājñavalkyasmti Jain DAP Dānādiprakaraa of Sūrācārya (An Exposition Beginning with Gift Giving) DAK Dānāakakathā (Eight Stories on Giving) RKŚ Ratnakaraa-śrāvakācāra of Samantabhadra (Lay Conduct in a Basket of Gems) ŚDK Śrāddhadinaktya of Devendra Sūri (Daily Ritual Duties of the Laity) TS Tattvārtha Sūtra of Umāsvāti (Discourse on the Meaning of the Truth) TSC Siddhasena Gain’s commentary on the Tattvārtha Sūtra UDh Upāsakādhyāyana of Somadeva (Book on the Laity) YŚ Yogaśāstra of Hemacandra (Treatise on Discipline) YŚS Yogaśāstra with Svopajñavtti of Hemacandra (Treatise on Discipline with the Author’s own Commentary) ix RT030X_C00.fm Page x Wednesday, November 24, 2004 9:55 PM x Abbreviations Listed by Tradition Theravāda Buddhist Additional abbreviations are those of the Pali Text Society. DVU Dasavatthuppakaraa (Service of the Ten Requisites) SAS Sāratthasamuccaya (Collection on the Meaning of the Essence) SDU Saddhammopāyana of Abhayagiri Kavicakravarti Ānanda Mahāthera (Gift-Offering of the True Dhamma) SRS Sārasagaha of Siddhattha (Compendium of the Essence) SSC Suttasagahahakathā of Ariyawansa (Commentary on the Compendium of Dis- courses) UJA Upāsakajanālakāra of Ānanda (Ornament of Lay People) RT030X_C00.fm Page xi Wednesday, November 24, 2004 9:55 PM SERIES EDITORS’ FOREWORD We are pleased to present the ninth in the Routledge first book series: Religion in History, Society and Culture, a series designed to bring exciting new work by young scholars on religion to a wider audience. We have two goals in mind: First, we wish to publish work that extends and illuminates our theoretical understanding of religion as a dimension of human culture and society. Under- standing religion has never been a more pressing need. Longstanding academic habits of either compartmentalizing, or altogether ignoring, religion are breaking down. With the entry of religion into the academy, however, must come a fully realized conversation about what religion is and how it interacts with history, society and culture. Our goal is to publish books that self-reflectively utilize and develop contextually sensitive categories and methods of analysis that advance our knowledge of religion generally, of a particular religious traditions and/or of a particular moment in the history of religions in a particular part of the world. Second, this series will be self-consciously interdisciplinary. The academic study of religion is conducted by historians, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, art historians, ethno-musicologists, psychologists, and others. We hope to bring before the interested reader an array of disciplinary lenses through which to view religion. Believing that the instability of the category itself should be a stimulus for further investigation, religion will be broadly understood to encompass a wide range of religiously oriented phenomena that include myths, rituals, ways of thought, communities, political and social movements, legal tra- ditions and systems, performances and texts, artistic productions, gendered roles, identity formation, etc, In this book, Maria Heim accomplishes a remarkable methodological and substantive breakthrough in the historical study of South Asian religion and reli- gious ethics. At the same time she makes a highly creative intervention in discus- sions concerning the theory of “the gift”—discussions that have been, at least since the time of Marcel Mauss, a central focus of attention in the philosophy of xi RT030X_C00.fm Page xii Wednesday, November 24, 2004 9:55 PM xii Series Editors’ Foreword religions, the history of religions and religious ethics, and the anthropology of religion and society. At the level of South Asian studies, Heim breaks important new ground with a sophisticated comparative study that focuses on a particular component in South Asian religious and ethical life (specifically the phenomenon of “dāna” or “gift giving”) as that phenomenon is presented and interpreted in comparable genres of texts produced within a clearly delineated temporal context (the so-called “medi- eval period”). In her study of Hindu texts, Jain texts, and Theravāda Buddhist texts Heim highlights for her readers fascinating and often quite unexpected common- alities on the one hand, and equally fascinating and often quite unexpected differ- ences on the other. At the level of reflection concerning the theory of the gift, Heim’s interven- tion is equally striking and equally innovative. In this context she directly chal- lenges the long dominant Maussian notion that reciprocity is, in all cases, the dynamic structuring force in the gift-giving process. Instead she argues that in the South Asian texts that she is exploring the gift-giving process involves not so much a dynamic of reciprocity, but rather a dynamic in which the crucial elements are the expression and the cultivation of an “ethics of esteem.” Her presentation of this new data, and her interpretation of its significance, will be of interest to all those who recognize the importance of gifts and gift giving in religious life and in ethical practice more generally. Frank Reynolds & Winnifred Sullivan RT030X_C00.fm Page xiii Wednesday, November 24, 2004 9:55 PM ACKNOWLEDGMENTS “Ānanda, there is a person because of a person.” That is to say, it is because of, or on account of, one person who is a teacher, that there is a person who is a student. “I say that requital is not easy.” —Suttasagahahakathā, p. 19 (MA.v.70) I have been the fortunate recipient of many vidyādānas in the course of this study, but above all I am grateful for the guidance and support of my dissertation advisor, Prof. Charles Hallisey. I thank him for his vision in suggesting the topic and approach, his enduring belief in the project, his teaching me how to read texts, and his steady stream of good advice. It is because of being his student that I have begun to comprehend both generosity and esteem. I thank also the two other members of my dissertation committee, Prof. Paul Dundas and Prof. Stephanie Jamison. Paul Dundas has given his support at every stage of the project by helping me to make contact with scholars in Gujarat, by reading Hemacandra’s Yoga-śāstra with me, and by sharing his deep and extensive knowledge of Jainism. I have also benefited greatly from Stephanie Jamison’s critical perspective, and she has taught me much about the values and integrity of textual scholarship.