Adhyaya 21

Vyāsa tells Jaimini a layered instruction: Hariśarmā asks Brahmā to clarify who are proper recipients of gifts. Brahmā extols brāhmaṇas as “visible deities,” grounding dāna in reverence and faith, and he explains the etiquette of honoring brāhmaṇas, including occasions when salutations are not appropriate. The chapter then proclaims the unsurpassed merit of giving food and water. An embedded exemplum teaches that contact with a brāhmaṇa’s foot-water (pāda-jala) can purify even extreme sin, so that the fallen former king Śaṅkha, after hellish retribution, attains liberation. A further lesson links hunger in the next world to miserliness and neglected offerings, instructing sons to give food and water for the support of the pitṛs. It concludes that no gift equals anna-jala-dāna, whose fruit arises without rigid constraints of time or severe scrutiny of the recipient.