THE ANUD¢PAN¢
act of generosity (
dÈna
). After seven days had passed, he went away leaving his wealth
before any recipient went near or arrived to actually receive the gifts. Hence, it is said that
such offering should be regarded as abandonment.
In every day practice which is not an act of merit, when we give something to some one,
we just say we ‘give’; the PÈli word is ‘
deti
’. But when we part with our property with the
thought let ‘whoever wants it take it; it no one wants it, then let it be‛ it is not giving away
but discarding or abandoning; in PÈli, it is not ‘
dÈna
’, but ‘
cÈga
’.
In short, when we hand over possession of our property to another person, it is said to be
given away or an act of charity. When we relinquish the wish to possess the property which
is one’s own, it is termed abandoning or discarding (as one would cast aside anything
which is of no more use).
Another method of differentiation is: giving to noble persons is
dÈna
; giving to persons
of lower status is
pariccÈga
. Thus, when a king, in performance of the ten duties of a king,
makes an offering to noble
bhikkhus
,
brahmins
, etc. it would be generosity (
dÈna
); when he
offers alms to lowly beggars, it would be
pariccÈga
.
In this way, it should be noted how generosity (
dÈna
) is taught distinctly from
abandonment (
pariccÈga
).
When DÈna and PariccÈga are similar
Although
dÈna
and
pariccÈga
are treated separately as in the list of the ten duties of a
king, shown above, in ultimate truth, the two terms cannot be different from each other.
When there is
dÈna
, there could be
pariccÈga
; when there is
pariccÈga
, there could be
dÈna
. The reason is that when an offering is made to a recipient, whether he is near or far,
it is an act of generosity (
dÈna
). When the sense of ownership is banished from the mind
(at the time of giving), this relinquishment is
pariccÈga
. Thus, whenever someone makes a
gift, it is always preceded by the thought: ‚I will not make use of it any more‛ which
implies abandonment. Therefore, with acts of merit, there is
pariccÈga
always
accompanying generosity.
In the Chronicles of Buddhas of the PÈli Canon also, in dealing with the Ten Perfections,
the Buddha mentions only the Perfection of Generosity, not the ‘Perfection of
Abandonment (
cÈga
)’, because (as explained above) abandonment is included in an act of
generosity. As the Text of the Chronicle of Buddhas deals only with the ultimate truth
(without considering the conventional usages), it mentions that making an offering to any
recipients, whether of high, medium or low status, is generosity (
dÈna
). It is irrelevant to
say that it is
dÈna
when offering is made to a noble person and
pariccÈga
when the
recipient is of low status.
Similarly, in the A~guttara NikÈya and other PÈli Texts, we find the enumeration of the
seven niches of a noble person as follow: faith, morality, knowledge, liberality (
cÈga
),
wisdom, moral shame (at doing evil) and moral dread (for doing evil). There is only
cÈga
in the list; there is no mention of
dÈna
here, because it is understood that generosity is
included in liberality (
cÈga
).
These are examples where
dÈna
and
cÈga
are mentioned without any distinction, with
identical meaning.
Where ‘DÈna’ is termed ‘PariccÈga’
Although any act of giving may generally be described as Perfection of Generosity, great
offerings (of extraordinary nature) are described in the Text as Great Abandonings
(MahÈpariccÈga). The Great Abandonings which consist of five kinds of relinquishing of
possession are listed differently in different Commentaries.
Commentaries on the SÊlakkhanda, M|lapaÓÓÈsa and A~guttara (in explaining the
meaning of the word ‘TathÈgata’) list the Great Abandonings are follows:
(i)
Relinquishing of the limbs.