Garuda Purana — Preta Kalpa, Shloka 21
Bhūmi-dāna, Satya-dharma, and the Non-cancellation of Sin by Charity
प्रतिग्रहाध्यापनयाजनेषु प्रतिग्रहं स्वेष्टतमं वदन्ति / प्रतिग्रहाच्छ्रुध्यति जाप्यहोमं न याजनं कर्म पुनन्ति वेदाः
pratigrahādhyāpanayājaneṣu pratigrahaṃ sveṣṭatamaṃ vadanti / pratigrahācchrudhyati jāpyahomaṃ na yājanaṃ karma punanti vedāḥ
လက်ဆောင်များ လက်ခံခြင်း၊ ပညာသင်ကြားပေးခြင်းနှင့် ယဇ်ပူဇော်ပွဲများ ကျင်းပပေးခြင်းတို့တွင် လက်ဆောင်လက်ခံခြင်းသည် အန္တရာယ်အရှိဆုံးဖြစ်သည်ဟု ဆိုကြသည်။ လက်ဆောင်များကို လက်ခံခြင်းကြောင့် ရွတ်ဖတ်သရဇ္ဈာယ်မှုနှင့် ပူဇော်သက္ကာရများသည် အားနည်းသွားစေသည်; ယဇ်ပူဇော်ပေးခြင်းသည် ထိုအကုသိုလ်အညစ်အကြေးကို သန့်စင်စေသည်ဟု ဗေဒကျမ်းများက မဆိုထားပေ။
Lord Vishnu (narrating instruction to Garuda)
Concept: Pratigraha (accepting gifts) is most perilous; it can impair japa and homa; mere yajana does not automatically purify that taint per Vedic authority.
Vedantic Theme: Inner purity (antahkarana-shuddhi) conditions the fruit of karma; livelihood ethics affect spiritual efficacy.
Application: For religious professionals: accept support with discernment, transparency, and purity of source; for donors: give righteously; for all: avoid transactional spirituality.
Primary Rasa: shanta
Secondary Rasa: bhayanaka
Related Themes: Garuda Purana: dana rules and warnings about impure gifts (aśuddha-dana); Garuda Purana: brahmana conduct codes—japa/homa purity and food/gift restrictions
FAQs
This verse treats pratigraha as the most spiritually risky of common priestly livelihoods, warning that improper acceptance can taint one’s mantra-recitation and fire-offerings.
By stressing ritual and ethical purity, it implies that actions like corrupt gift-acceptance create karmic blemishes that can follow the soul after death, affecting one’s spiritual standing—an underlying theme throughout the Preta Kanda.
Give and receive donations ethically: avoid coercive, dishonest, or impure exchanges; prioritize integrity in religious services so spiritual practice (japa, homa, worship) remains sincere and effective.