Grace

प्रसादः is explicitly rejected because in Sanskrit it names a concrete ritual category: food or an object offered to a deity and returned to the worshipper as a sanctified gift (prasādam), a transactional cultic exchange, not unmerited relational favor. पुण्यम् is accumulated merit within the karma system. अनुग्रहः, while still meaning ‘favor,’ is the least ritually-encumbered of the available terms and is used in bhakti Vedanta (e.g. Ramanuja) for divine favor toward the devotee, giving it some theological precedent, though even there it operates within a devotion-response framework that must be explicitly distinguished from unconditional grace prior to any devotion.