[Buddha-l] A question for Jewish Buddhists

[L.S. Cousins]

Dan Lusthaus wrote:
> 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.
>   

Then you shouldn't.

Sūkara 'making the sound sū' does indeed mean a pig, but maddava occurs 
by itself only in the sense of 'softness' or 'gentleness'. That clearly 
could mean some kind of pork dish. But maddava never occurs elsewhere at 
the end of a compound with any kind of meat either in Sanskrit or in 
Middle Indian, as far as I know.

On the other hand Monier Williams lists from the Sanskrit lexica 
meanings of deer, rice, a kind of plant (for sūkara by itself) and also 
four or five different compounds beginning with sūkara that are names 
for some kind of vegetable or the like.

Given this evidence and the fact that the form of the word as we have it 
must be restored from a more developed form of Middle Indian, it is 
clear that any of the traditions concerning this could be correct.

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

Incongruity is only a principle for the unprincipled.
>   
>> 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:
>   

I don't have time to go through all this. But let us note that DPPN is 
an invaluable resource, but it does tend to lump together evidence of 
very different dates in a way which would now be considered uncritical.

Let me simplify and focus only on the early sources:

Two laymen:

1. Prince Cunda. Referred to once by his sister.

2. Cunda, a wealthy member of a smith clan who has donated a mango grove 
for the use of wanderers. He it is who donates the last meal.

Two monks:

3. Mahācunda. Always identified as a monk. The main figure in a few 
discourses and occurring a number of times in lists of very eminent monk 
disciples. The fact that he is distinguished by the prefix Mahā tells us 
that there was a least one other monk with the name Cunda.

4. In a few places we meet a Cunda Samaṇuddesa. It is possible, but not 
certain that Samaṇuddesa means some kind of novice. In any case the name 
is again intended to differentiate him from Mahācunda. In one late 
canonical source (Ap) we have reference to a Cūḷacunda who must be the 
same person, understood to be a brother or more probably a half brother 
of Sāriputta.

We can ignore the postcanonical sources for present purposes.

Omitting th ematerial from DPPN, you comment on 2. Cunda (i.e. the monks):
> 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.
>   

On the contrary, distinguishing the two is rather precise.

> 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.
>
>   
If you want to cite a solitary reference from maybe the sixth century 
A.D. as better evidence than the canonical sources, you can prove 
anything you like.
>>> 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. 
Not so. The Sanskrit version of the Rājasūtra (=Sāmaññaphalasutta) in 
the Dīrghāgama is virtually identical to the version included in the 
Sanskrit (Mūla-)sarvāstivādin Vinaya texts. (I have personally compared 
parts of them.) A number of suttas in the Pali MN which are missing in 
the Chinese version of the Madhyamāgama are precisely found in the 
Sanskrit Dīrghāgama. And so on. I don't believe there is any doubt in 
this case.

Lance