This book argues that donation (dāna) is one of the central practices in early Buddhism for, without it, Buddhism would not have survived and flourished in the many centuries of its development and expansion. Early Buddhist donation draws on older Vedic beliefs and practices, especially those involving funeral ceremonies and the ritual transfiguration of the ancestors (pitṛs). Buddhist relationship between donors and renunciants developed quickly into a complex web that involves material life and the views about how to attend to it. Questions of how to properly acquire and use wealth, how to properly give and receive individual and communal gifts, how to think about using and transferring merit, and what constitutes proper food, robes, lodging, and medicine are central to the "dāna contract."
The dāna system reflects the changing dynamics of life in northern India as wealth and leisure time increase, and as newly powerful groups of people look around for alternative religions affiliation. Buddhist dāna's great success is due to the early and continuing use of accommodation with other faiths as a foundational value, thus allowing the tradition to adapt to changing circumstances.
