Abstract

The topic of the gift was widely theorized in medieval South Asia by Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu scholastics. Hindu Dharmasastra theorists composed extensive digests on the gift , while Jain and Theravada, Buddhist theorists discussed the topic in anthologies and commentaries on lay morality. These texts, which emerged most prolifically in the 11--13th centuries CE, were the first large-scale, systematic efforts in each tradition to codify and systematize ideals concerning the essential moral, religious, and social aspects of the gift. This study considers these textual sources in relationship to one another for not only for comparative purposes, but also to explore the possibilities of shared elite cultural and moral ideologies and scholarly practices in medieval South Asia. The dissertation also brings the medieval discourses into conversation with modern reflections on the gift from various fields, including anthropology, sociology, critical theory, and philosophy. ;I argue that the face-to-face hospitality encounter described and prescribed in the medieval gift discourses provides a site for critical reflection on ethics. The South Asian theorists developed rich vocabularies for thinking about intention, disposition, virtue, and response in the context of giving. Moreover, discussions and classifications of the values that inhere in gift giving practices provided the theorists an opportunity to describe how moral agency is related to material objects and to ritual etiquette. ;I suggest that the ideology of the gift that emerges in the South Asian discourses can be described as an "ethics of esteem." Dana should ideally be given to a worthy and esteemed recipient, where recognition of and reverence toward moral superiors are central moral values. As such, dana is quite unlike Christian notions of charity or altruism, and it is generally not evoked by appeal to pity or compassion. Dana also departs from formulations of the gift in modern anthropological literature that assume an underlying reciprocity or exchange implicit in gift relations, in that dana is ideally not returned with gratitude, obligation, or counter-gift. The hierarchical values of esteem, one-way transactions, and recognition of religious distinction were articulated as some of the foundational elements of the moral and religious life.