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BRAHMANISM
or with a view to annihilating someone else [i.e., in the service of the destructive forces of death and darkness).” 106
Similarly threefold are the attitudes toward charity (dāna), the giving of gifts. The giving is sāttvic when the gifts are bestowed upon worthy people who can make no return (poor people, orphans, widows, beggars, rcligious mendicants, saints, etc.), at the correct time and place and with the thought, simply, that one has to make gifts. The charity is rājasic when it is dispensed with an expectation of service in return, or for the sake of some reward from the gods or destiny according to the law of karma (phalam: fruit), or when the donation is made with reluctance, or when the gift is in bad condition, worn, or in disrepair. Tāmasic giving is that in which the gift is bestowed at an inappropriate place or time, from improper, wicked motives, or with contempt.107
"Arjuna said:
“But under what cocrcion, () Krsna, does a man, even against his will, commit sin, driven, as it were, by force?'
"The Blessed Lord replied:
“'Desire (kāma), this furious, wrathful passion (krodha), which is born of the guņa of violent action, is the great evil, the great hunger. Know that in this world this is the foul fiend.108
“As fire is enveloped by smoke, a mirror by dust, and an unborn child in the womb by the integument that surrounds the embryo, so is understanding by desire. The higher intelligence (jñāna) of man-who is intrinsically endowed with perfect insight (jñānin)-is enveloped by this eternal fiend Desire, which
108 1b. 17. 17-19. 107 Ib. 17. 20-22.
108 Kāma, Desire, in the role of the soul fiend, the evil one, figures in exactly the same sense in the legend of the Buddha. A beautiful youth, carrying a lute, appears as the tempter, the "Worst One" (papiyan), to seduce the Buddha-to-be, first through the alluring charm of his three daughters and then through violence (cf. supra, pp. 205-206).
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