[Buddha-l] A question for Jewish Buddhists

[Dan Lusthaus]

Lance,

> > If they had wanted to say sūkaramaṃsa or even just sūkara, they could
> >> have said that. The fact that they didn't suggests it was probably not
> >>
> > pork.
> >
> > Who is the "they"? Redactors?
> >
>
> Whenever the evidence is against you, you try to eliminate it with
> redactors. If the term sūkaramaddava is introduced by redactors, then we
> have no evidence as to what the Buddha ate at his last meal.

No. I was making a sarcastic point -- that when we zoom into a specific
term, such as sukaramaddava, all sorts of uncritical Ur-thoughts are usually
in the room. That the commentators were not sure what the term meant
suggests it, like the story, was retained from an earlier period. But that
doesn't mean this was the exact, definitive word used by Buddha or his
contemporaries. When codified (are you more comfortable with "codifiers"
rather than "redactors"? In the case of the canon, I see them as merging
together) certain terms were picked. Did the original "codifiers" have a
specific food in mind when they chose this specific word? Or did they
intentionally pick an ambiguous term? Was this the first word chosen, or did
a codifier/redactor bring this in at some point? *Who* said it in the first
place, from which the codified version derived?

Such questions are amusing, and typically occupy scholars, but they are just
speculations. What we know is that sūkara is a domestic pig bred for food; a
sūkarika is a butcher of pigs. Maddava can refer to soft "gentle" food. So
sūkaramaddava might refer to pork cooked to a tender consistency, that even
an old man, possibly lacking teeth to chew, would be able to eat and digest.
What I find far-fetched is the effort to identify it as non-pork.

We have no evidence of what he ate; but again, the principle of incongruity
suggests it was bad pork.

> This must be just an unhistorical confusion. Mahācunda was a major monk
> disciple who could hardly be identical with the smith Cunda who served
> the last meal.

Well, let's delve into this a bit, since there seems to be some confusion
about the name even if we limit ourselves to the Pali sources (in the
Chinese sources, e.g., Maha-cunda is indeed clearly identified as a
sramana). Rather than rely on my interpretations or claims, here is what the
Pali Dictionary of Proper Names has to say about various Cundas:

(1)
1. Cunda.-A worker in metals (kammāraputta) living in Pāvā. When the Buddha
reached Pāvā on his way to Kusinārā, he stayed in Cunda's Mango grove. There
Cunda visited him and invited him and the monks to a meal the next day. The
meal consisted of sweet rice and cakes and sūkaramaddava. At the meal the
Buddha ordered that he alone should be served with sūkaramaddava, and that
what was left over should be buried in a hole. This was the Buddha's last
meal, as very soon after it he developed dysentery (D.ii.126; Ud.viii.5).
The Buddha, a little while before his death, gave special instructions to
Ananda that he should visit Cunda and reassure him by telling him that no
blame at all attached to him and that he should feel no remorse, but should,
on the contrary, rejoice, in that he had been able to give to the Buddha a
meal which, in merit, far exceeded any other (D.ii.135f).



The Suttanipāta Commentary (SNA.i.159) mentions that, at this meal, Cunda
provided golden vessels for the monks' use; some made use of them, others
did not. One monk stole a vessel and put it in his bag. Cunda noticed this
but said nothing. Later, in the afternoon, he visited the Buddha and
questioned him as to the different kinds of samanas there were in the world.
The Buddha preached to him the Cunda Sutta.



The Commentary adds (p.166; also UdA.399) that Cunda reached no attainment,
but merely had his doubts dispelled. The Digha Commentary, however, says
(DA.ii.568) that he became a Sotāpanna at the first sight of the Buddha and
built for him a vihāra at the Ambavana. This latter incident, probably, took
place at an earlier visit of the Buddha, for we are told (D.iii.207) that
while the Buddha was staying in Cunda's Mango grove, he was invited by the
Mallas to consecrate their new Mote-hall, Ubbhataka. He accepted the
invitation, preached in the hall till late at night, and then requested
Sāriputta to continue, which he did by preaching the Sangīti Sutta. This was
soon after the death of Nigantha Nātaputta (D.iii.210).



The Anguttara Nikāya (v.263ff) mentions another conversation between the
Buddha and Cunda. Cunda tells the Buddha that he approves of the methods of
purification (soceyyāni) laid down by the brahmins of the west
(Pacchābhūmakā). The Buddha tells him of the teaching of the Ariyans
regarding the threefold defilement and purification of the body, the
fourfold defilement and purification of the speech, and the threefold
defilement and purification of the mind. Cunda accepts the Buddha's
explanations and declares himself his follower.



Note that the golden vessel story is *later* -- an invention of the
commentaries. Note also there is some debate about what status to attribute
to Cunda; they want to say nice things about him (there is the dāna, highly
praised in D., but the limiting of its implications in the commentaries,
etc.)



2.

Cunda.-The books appear to refer to two theras by the name of Cunda, the
better known being Mahā-Cunda and the other Cūla-Cunda. But the legends
connected with them are so confused that it is not possible to differentiate
clearly one from the other.

Mention is also made of a Cunda-Samanuddesa whom, however, the Commentaries
(E.g.. DA.iii.907) identify with Mahā-Cunda. Mahā-Cunda is, for instance,
described in the Theragāthā Commentary (ThagA.i.261; see also DhA.ii.188 and
AA.ii.674) as the younger brother of Sāriputta, under whom he joined the
Order, winning arahantship after arduous and strenuous effort.

In the time of Vipassī Buddha he had been a potter and had given to the
Buddha a bowl made of clay. The Apadāna verses quoted in the Theragāthā
Commentary are, in the Apadāna itself (Ap.ii.444), ascribed to a monk named
Ekapattadāyaka. They make no mention whatever of his relationship to
Sāriputta. On the other hand, there are to be found elsewhere in the Apadāna
(Ap.i.101f) certain verses ascribed to a Cunda Thera, which definitely state
that he was the son of the brahmin Vanganta, and that his mother was Sārī.
But in these verses he is called Cūla-Cunda, and mention is made of his
previous birth in the time of Siddhattha Buddha, to whom he gave a bouquet
of jasmine flowers. As a result he became king of the devas seventy-seven
times and was once king of men, by name Dujjaya. It is further stated that
he became arahant while yet a sāmanera and that he waited upon the Buddha
and his own brother and other virtuous monks. This account goes on to say
that after his brother's death, Cunda brought his relics in a bowl and
presented them to the Buddha, who uttered praises of Sāriputta. This would
identify Cūla-Cunda with Cunda Samanuddesa who, according to the Samyutta
Nikāya (S.v.161f), attended Sāriputta in his last illness and, after his
death, brought to the Buddha at Jetavana Sāriputta's bowl and outer robe and
his relics wrapt in his water-strainer. Therefore if Buddhaghosa is correct
in identifying Cunda Samanuddesa with Mahā-Cunda, then all three are one and
the same. (Buddhaghosa says that the monks called him Samanuddesa in his
youth before his upasampadā, and he never lost the name, DA.iii.907).

Cunda Samanuddesa was, for some time, the personal attendant of the Buddha
(ThagA.ii.124; J.iv.95, etc.), and when the Buddha prepared to perform the
Twin Miracle, offered to perform a miracle himself and so save the Buddha
trouble and exertion (DhA.iii.211). Cunda's teacher was Ananda, and it was
to Ananda that he first brought the news of Sāriputta's death. (SA.iii.178;
see also the Pāsādika Sutta and the Sāmagāma Sutta, where Cunda brings to
Ananda and then to the Buddha the news of Nigantha Nātaputta's death; see
also the Sallekha Sutta).

Mahā-Cunda was evidently a disciple of great eminence, and is mentioned by
the Buddha (A.iii.299; see also M.iii.78; Ud.i.5) in company with the Two
Chief Disciples, Mahā Kassapa, Mahā Kotthita, Mahā Kaccāna and other very
eminent Elders.

The Pitakas contain several discourses (A.iii.355; v.41, 157) given to the
monks by Mahā-Cunda while residing at Sahajātī among the Cetis, probably
after the Buddha's death. Cunda (or Cundaka as he is called in this context)
was with the Buddha in his last journey to Kusinārā, and spread a bed for
him in the Mango grove by the Kakutthā River (D.ii.134f; Ud.viii.5).

Cunda is mentioned (S.iv.50f.; M.iii.263f ) as having accompanied Sāriputta
when he went to see Channa at the Kalandakanivāpa in Rājagaha, just before
Channa's suicide. Once, when the Buddha lay ill in the Kalandakanivāpa,
Cunda visited him and they talked of the bojjhangas. There and then the
Buddha's sickness vanished. S.v.81.


Note: distinguishing the greater from the lesser Cunda is not precise. And
he just happens to be along on the fateful trip to Kusinārā, where the
"other" Cunda serves up the pig-stuff.

3.
Cunda Sūkarika

A pork butcher near Veluvana.

For forty-five years he plied his trade, killing pigs in such a way as to
retain the flavour of the flesh unimpaired. When death approached he saw
before him the fires of Avīci and roared with pain. For seven days he
grunted like a pig, crawling on all fours, and no one could prevent him. The
monks told the Buddha of the noises they had heard when passing the
butcher's house, and the Buddha explained how retribution had fallen on
Cunda commensurate with his wickedness. DhA.i.105ff

Note: I think it very likely that this was, originally, the very same
pork-serving Cunda, but that the codifiers, redactors, call them what you
will, split them apart, directing all the rebuke and anger at this
doppelganger, in order to sanitize the meal scene.


> > Chinese versions of the Dirgha- and Madhyama-Agamas (sectarian
affiliations
> > of those versions still an issue).
>
> Surely not in the second case. It is clearly a product of the same
> school which produced the so-called Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinaya. That is
> now clear from the new Sanskrit Dīrgha materials. Even in the first case
> it must be Dharmaguptaka or a closely related school.

I am not so sure. The Madhyama-agama was translated by Gautama Sanghadeva,
whom some (e.g., C. Willemen) have tried to identify as a Sarvastivadin, and
some Chinese contemporaries (e.g., Huiyuan) called a "good mahayanist." But
he was a pudgalavadin. Since we do not have the canons of the
Sarvastivadins, Dharmaguptakas, Vatsiputriyas, etc., it seems very tenuous
to make definitive claims. Up to now claims about the affiliations of the
Agama texts have been based on colophons and/or what other Chinese texts say
about them. While I have yet to publish anything on this, I am discovering
that the Chinese understanding of sectarian divisions outside China was very
poor, and by the end of the 4th c. only "Mahayana" was considered viable
(with certain exceptions eventually for texts like the Kosa, since
translated by Mahayana monks like Paramartha and Xuanzang). Up to a couple
of decades ago, the pudgalavada texts translated by Kumarabuddhi and
Sanghadeva were not recognized in East Asian scholarship as pudgalavadin,
but were considered simply "Abhidharma," "probably Sarvastivada." In short,
we don't really know where the canonical differences lie, aside from the
Pali on one side, and everything else on the other.

Dan