Did Buddha die of eating pork? Yes

 Did Buddha die of eating pork? Yes

Did Buddha die of eating pork? Yes

 

The story of Buddha's last meal, as told in the Mahaaparinibbaana-sutta ('Book of the Great Decease') is well summed up by E.J.Thomas(1). At Paavaa, Budha stayed in the mango grove of Cunda Thomas(1). At Paavaa, Buddha stayed in the mango grove of Cundathe smith. There Cunda provided a meal with the excellent food, hard and soft, and a large amount of suukaramaddava. Before the meal Buddha said, ((Serve me, Cunda, with the suukaramaddava that you have prepared, and serve the order with the other hard and soft food.)) Cunda did so, and after the meal Buddha told him to throw the remainder of the suukaramaddava into a hole, as he saw no-one in the world who could digest it other than the Tathaagata.(2) The sharp sickness arose, with flow of blood, and violent deadly pains, but Buddha mindful and conscious controlled them...and set out for Kusinaaraa. Tje word suukaramaddava occurs nowhere else(except in discussions of this passage) and the -maddddava part is capable of at least four interpretations. Granting that it comes from the root MRD 'soft', cognate with Latin mollis, it is still ambiguous, for it may either mean 'the soft parts of a pig' or 'pig's sofg-food' i.e. food eaten by pigs.(3) But it may again come from the same root as our word 'mill' and mean'pig-pounded', i.e. 'trampled by pigs'.

 

There is yet another similar root meaning 'to be pleased', and as will be seen below one scholar has supposed the existence of a vegetable called 'pig's-delight'. The question whether Buddha did or did not die of eating pork has naturally presented itself to the lay mind as a theological one. Actually, however, no theological point is involved. Even specialists have very imperfectly realized that till late in the history of Bud- ¢w¢w¢w¢w¢w¢w¢w¢w¢w¢w¢w¢w 1 The Life of Buddddha (Kegan Paul. 1927)p.149. 2 No feature in the story is stranger than this apparent touch of irony. 3 If derived from this root maddava may be compared etymologically to our word 'mallow', the soft plant. 

 

Buddhism, the eating of flesh was permitted, except under certain exceptional circumstances. The Buddhist monk must refrain from eating meat if he 'knows, hears or infers' that it has been killed specially for him(1). The latitude allowed was very great; for example, it was considered wrong for a monk to go to a house and ask for meat, unless he was ill. But he might ask for it if the householder said to him 'Is there anything else you could fancy?' It was therefore not in the least surprising that in commenting on the Diigha-nikaaya's account of Buddha's last meal, Buddhaghosha (beginning of the 5th century) should have been quite content to take suukara-maddava as meaning pork. But the commentary on the Udaana(3), in dealing with this passage, says: suukara-maddava in the Great Commentary(4) is said to be the flesh of a pig made soft and oily; but some say it was not pig's flesh but the sprout of a plant trodden by pigs; other that it was a mushroom growing in a place trodden by pigs; other again have taken it in the sense of a flavoring substance.