अदेशकाले यद्दानमपात्रेभ्यश्च दीयते।असत्कृतमवज्ञातं तत्तामसमुदाहृतम्॥
adeśa-kāle yad dānam apātrebhyaś ca dīyateasat-kṛtam avajñātaṃ tat tāmasam udāhṛtam
Word by word
The verse says
A gift given in the wrong place and at the wrong time, to the wrong people, without respect or with contempt in it - that one is dark.
In plain words
The last word is the one that matters. Avajñāta - with contempt.
You can hand somebody money and insult them in the same motion. Most people have seen it done, and some have done it.
The gift is real. The contempt is also real. And the person receiving remembers the second one far longer.
Where you've felt this · in community
A driver hands a coin out of the window to the man at the traffic light without looking at him, the way you put something down on a counter. It is real money and it is more than nothing. The man at the window has had this happen about forty times today. By evening the money will have helped a little. Being looked past forty times will have done its own work as well.
Going deeper
Contempt travelling along with a gift is what this verse is about, and it does damage that giving nothing would not do.
Avajñāta means looked down on. What is handed over may be substantial. What the recipient receives is two things at once: the help, and the information about how they are seen. The second is usually the more memorable, and it lasts a great deal longer.
This is why place, time and person are listed alongside it. All three are forms of paying attention. Getting them wrong is not a failure of generosity but of noticing, and being given something by somebody who has not looked at you is its own small experience.
What it asks of you is not more money. It is the half-second of actually seeing the person in front of you, which is free, and is the part most often left out.