History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.750
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.750
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Nār. VII. 8 states that there are seven kinds of *datta* gifts, i. e. gifts or transfers that cannot be resumed because they are made by a person in full possession of his faculties and of things that belong to him absolutely and are not forbidden. They are: the price paid for goods bought, wages, what is paid for pleasure (derived from dancing, singing, wrestling), a gift through affection, a gift made in gratitude, money paid to a bride's kinsmen, and gifts for spiritual or charitable purposes. Acc. to Bṛ.⁸¹⁸ (SBE vol. 33 p. 343 verse 8) there are eight kinds of valid gifts. Nār. VII. 9-11 mentions sixteen kinds of invalid gifts, which have already been set out (in H. of Dh. vol. II. p. 887 where Gaut. V. 22 that specifies some invalid gifts has also been cited). Vide Kāt. 647. The difference between gifts of *adeya* and *adatta* gifts is this. In the first class of cases, the gifts being forbidden are entirely null and void, while *adatta* gifts are those that are voidable and may be set aside by the court on the application of the donor himself, because, of the incapacity of the donor due to intoxication, lunacy, old age, minority, mistake etc. Kāt. 646 and Kauṭ. (III. 13) state that if a man⁸¹⁹ is in danger of life and promises the gift of all his property to whomsoever may save him, he may resile from the promise and pay only what an expert or arbitrator may award. Kāt. (650–651) defines *utkoca* (bribe)⁸²⁰ as what is obtained in these ways viz.
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by giving (or threatening to give false) information about a person as a thief or a felon, or as one who breaks the rules of decent conduct, or as an adulterous person, or by pointing out those who are of bad character or by spreading false reports about a person. He further provides that a person offering the bribe should not be fined, but the intermediary may be fined and if the person accepting the bribe has been appointed to an office by the king he should be made to return the bribe and pay a fine eleven times as much to the king. But Kāt. adds that where a person not holding a public appointment obtains some gratification for work done, he would not be held guilty and would not have to return what he received as a reward or in gratitude. Hārīta holds out⁸²¹ other-worldly evil consequences for not actually delivering what is promised or for resuming what has been already delivered as a gift viz. the person doing so falls into Hell and is born as one of the lower animals and adds that what is promised as a gift for a religious purpose in so many words but is not actually delivered becomes a debt in this world and the next i. e. the king should make the promisor give the promised gift and should inflict a fine. Kāt.
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(642) provides⁸²² that a man who having voluntarily promised a gift to a brāhmaṇa does not deliver it should be made to render it as a debt and should be awarded the lowest amercement and further (verse 566) that if a man promises a gift for a religious purpose whether in good health or in disease, his son (or other heir) should be made to pay it if the promisor died without actually delivering it. These verses show that in two cases gifts though not completed by delivery of possession were enforced by ancient Indian courts viz. when the gift was promised to a brāhmaṇa or when the gift was declared to be made for a religious and charitable purpose. The last verse contains the beginnings of the idea of a will, since the mere declaration of the intention of a man to give for a religious purpose is made enforceable after his death against his son or heir. But this germ could not evolve into a full-fledged law of testamentary succession on account of the practice of adoption, the requirement that a gift must be accompanied by present possession and the incidents of the joint family on account of which no single member could alienate family property except for legal necessity and which involved the doctrine that on the death of a member his rights ended and passed by survivorship to other members. Bṛ. expressly states this.⁸²³ But a gift though promised need not be paid or carried out if the promisee turns out to be an irreligious man (Gaut. V. 21). Nār. VII. 12 and Bṛ.
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provide that he who enjoys an invalid gift and he who makes a forbidden gift are both to be punished by the king.⁸²⁴