History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c43.57

v3.c43.57

Certain things were forbidden to be accepted as gifts. The gift of animals with two rows of teeth was forbidden by śruti (vide Śabara on Jaimini VI. 7. 4 quoted above). Vas. Dh. S. 13. 55 declares that a brāhmaṇa should not accept the gift of weapons, poisonous substances and spirituous liquor. Manu IV. 188 states that a brāhmaṇa who is not learned should not accept the gift of gold, land, horses, cow, food, garment, sesame, clarified butter; but if he accepts he is reduced to ashes (i. e. perishes) like wood. Hemādri (Dāna p. 57) quotes the Brahma-purāṇa that a brāhmaṇa should not accept the gifts of ewes, horses, precious stones, an elephant, sesame and iron, and that one who accepts a gift of antelope skin or sesame would not be born again as a male and that if a person accepts the bedstead, ornaments and the clothes of one who is dead he would go to hell.