Rig Veda

Mandal - 10 (Part - 10)

HYMN 117 Liberality

1

THE Gods have not ordained hunger to be our death: even to the well-fed man comes death in varied shape.
The riches of the liberal never waste away, while he who will not give finds none to comfort him.

2

The man with food in store who, when the needy comes in miserable case begging for bread to eat,
Hardens his heart against him-even when of old he did him service-finds not one to comfort him.

3

Bounteous is he who gives unto the beggar who comes to him in want of food and feeble.
Success attends him in the shout of battle. He makes a friend of him in future troubles.

4

No friend is he who to his friend and comrade who comes imploring food, will offer nothing.
Let him depart-no home is that to rest in-, and rather seek a stranger to support him.

5

Let the rich satisfy the poor implorer, and bend his eye upon a longer pathway.
Riches come now to one, now to another, and like the wheels of cars are ever rolling.

6

The foolish man wins food with fruitless labour: that food -I speak the truth- shall be his ruin.
He feeds no trusty friend, no man to love him. All guilt is he who eats with no partaker.

7

The ploughshare ploughing makes the food that feeds us, and with its feet cuts through the path it follows.
Better the speaking than the silent Brahman: the liberal friend outyalues him who gives not.

8

He with one foot hath far outrun the biped, and the two-footed catches the three-footed.
Four-footed creatures come when bipeds call them, and stand and look where five are met together.

9

The hands are both alike: their labour differs. The yield of sister milch-kine is unequal.
Twins even diffier in their strength and vigour: two, even kinsmen, differ in their bounty.