Dear friends,
On Dhamma Study Group list we had a long discussion about the Buddha's last
meal, Mahaaparinibbaana sutta, Diighanikaaya.
Some people believe that the Buddha became sick because of the
sukkaramaddava (tender pork) Cunda gave him. The Commentaries interprete: he
became sick, not because of,
but after the meal. Then we returned to the sutta text itself and studied
the Pali with the grammar. Suan helped us with the grammar and quoted rules
of the Saddaniitii. Since several of you are interested in the Saddaniiti, I
will, with Suan's kind permission, reproduce our correspondence in different
sections.
First I shall give some quotes from the commentaries.
It was discussed what the súkaramaddava consisted of.
In the Commentary to the ³Mahåparinibbåna Sutta² (Ch 4, translated by
Yang-Gyu An) it is said:
³Pork stew (súkaramaddava): the fresh meat (pavattama.msa) from a prize pig
that is neither too young nor too old. That, people say, is both tender and
succulent. The meaning is that he had it prepared and carefully cooked. But
some teachers say that súkaramaddava¹ is the name of a recipe for cooking
soft-boiled rice with the five liquid products of the cow, just as cow¹s
milk is the name of a beverage. Others say that súkaramaddava¹ is the name
for a kind of elixir.²
.......
³ Cunda prepared the súkaramaddava with an elixir, thinking, Let the
Blessed One not attain parinibbåna¹. And the deities of the four great
continents and their twothousand surrounding islands infused nutritive
essence into it.²
The same Commentary explains the words of the Sutta text: ³Bhuttassa ca
súkara-maddavenå², and after he had eaten from the súkara-maddava, a dire
sickness fell upon him...² We read:
³It happened to him when he had eaten, but not because he had eaten. If he
had not eaten, the pains would have been too strong ; but because he had
eaten the succulent food, his pain was slight, which is why he was able to
walk on foot.²
We read in ³The Questions of King Milinda² (175) that King Milinda discussed
the last meal with the venerable Någasena. Milinda said: ³How could that
alms, Någasena, be of great fruit when it turned to poison, gave rise to
disease...²
Nagasena answered:² ...For that alms is full of virtue, full of advantage.
The gods, O king, shouted in joy and gladness at the thought: This is the
last meal the Tathågata will take,¹ and communicated a divine power of
nourishment to that tender pork. And that was itself in good condition,
light, pleasant, full of flavour, and good for digestion. It was not because
of it that any sickness fell upon the Blessed One, but it was because of the
extreme weakness of his body, and because of the period of life he had to
live been exhausted, that the disease arose, and grew worse and worse....So
this was not, O king, the fault of the food that was presented, and you can
not impute any harm to it."
(to be continued)
Nina.