Reconsideration of a plausible relationship between gift and merit in the earliest Vedic and Pāli sources. 1: A comparison between the usages of Pā. dakkhiṇeyya and Ved. dakṣiṇīya

Of gift and merit in Brahmanical and Buddhist culture. A crucial term in this respect is the Ved. noun dákṣiṇā, Pā. dakkhiṇā, on which a vast amount of secondary literature already exists. Nonetheless, the time has come to evaluate these consolidated findings against the background of the numerous additional linguistic and cultural data that are currently available. In particular, a comparative analysis of the two traditions might help to illuminate both, as already contemplated by Oguibénine (1982: 402), when he suggested to look into the Buddhist concept of transference of merit to better understand the Vedic dákṣiṇā. It is fruitful to assume, and put to the test, an original continuity in the cultural history of the dákṣiṇā/dakkhiṇā, understood not as a gift or offering to the officiant, but as a positive auspicious condition enabling the one who attains it to achieve and possibly distribute or transfer blessings and merits. In this article, the three authors concentrate on an interesting derivative from this etymon, namely Pā. dakkhiṇeyya and Ved. dakṣiṇya in an attempt to prove that the translation commonly adopted for the Vedic term that is strictly limited to a ritual context, i.e., ‘worthy of priestly gifts’, does not completely match the Pāli testimony and that at the same time it is not even consistent w ithin the Vedic occurrences themselves.