[3] According to Monier Williams, the term is found in many Vedic texts, in the context of "a fee or present to the officiating priest (consisting originally of a cow, Kātyāyana Śrautasūtra 15, Lāṭyāyana Śrautasūtra 8.1.2)", a 'donation to the priest', a 'reward', an 'offering to a guru', a 'gift, donation'.
[5] Gurudakṣiṇā refers to the tradition of repaying one's teacher or guru after a period of study or the completion of formal education, or an acknowledgment to a spiritual guide.
The repayment is not exclusively monetary and may be a special task the teacher wants the student to accomplish.
There is a symbolic story in the Indian epic Mahabharata that discusses proper and improper gurudakṣiṇā, after a character named Ekalavya.
The story, like many stories in Mahabharata, is an open ended parable on education, personal drive to learn, and what is proper and improper dakṣiṇā In the epic Mahabharata, after the right hand thumb as gurudakṣiṇā event, Drona is haunted and wonders if demanding Ekalavya's thumb was proper,[9] Ekalavya goes on to re-master archery with four fingers of his right hand, as well as left hand, thereby becoming a mighty warrior, becomes accepted as a king, and tells his children that education is for everyone and that no one can close the doors of education on any human being.