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" One of the strangest controversies in the history of Orientalism turned upon the “origin of bhakti”, as if devotion had at some given moment been a new idea and thenceforth a fashionable one. It would have been simpler to observe that the word bhakti means primarily a given share, and therefore also the devotion or love that all liberality presupposes; and so that inasmuch as one “gives God his share” (bhagam), i.e. sacrifces, one is his bhakta. Thus in the hymn, “If thou givest me my share” amounts to saying “If thou lovest me”. It has often been pointed out that the Sacrifice was thought of as a commerce between Gods and men: but not often realised that by introducing into traditional conceptions of trade notions derived from our own internecine commercial transactions, we have falsified our understanding of the original sense of such a commerce, which was actually more of the potlatsh type, a competition in giving, than like our competitions in taking. "
― Ananda K. Coomaraswamy , Hinduism And Buddhism
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" Let us now turn for a moment to the word karman which has been cited above. The meanings of the verbal root kar, present also in the Latin creare and the Greek κραίνω [kraino], are to make, do, and effect. And significantly, just as the Latin facere is originally sacra facere, literally “make sacred,” and as the Greek πoιέω = ἱερoπoιέω [poieo = hieropoieo], so karman is originally and very often not merely “work” or “making,” but synonymous with yajna, “sacrifice” and also with vrata, “sacred operation,” “obedience,” “sphere of activity,” “function,” and especially as in the Bhagavad Gita, with dharma, “justice” or “natural law.” In other words, the idea is deeply rooted in our humanity that there is no real distinction of work from holy works, and no necessary opposition of profane to sacred activities. And it is precisely this idea that finds such vivid expression in the well-known Indian philosophy of action, the “Way of Works” (karmamarga) of the Bhagavad Gita. "
― Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
