Dr. Sunil Jayasinghe (Last Meal of Buddha, Dhammikaweb); Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly
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| Cunda Kammāraputta prepares sukara maddava or "pig's delight" which is NOT pork (Wiki) |
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THE LAST MEAL OF THE BUDDHA
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| The Buddha ate Babe? No. He ate mushrooms. |
Buddhist researcher Dr. Sunil Jayasinghe, an engineer and author of the book Last Meal of Buddha (2011), had the objective of getting to the truth.
- Wisdom Quarterly solved this question years before
- Sr. Vajira and Francis Story knew in 1964 translating DN 16*
According to Dr. Jayasinghe, one of the foremost leaders of efforts to denigrate the Buddha, who irrefutably reaped many fruits for doing so, was the systematizer who organized “Hinduism,” Adi Shankara or
Sankara Achariya (788-820 AD).
Adi Shankara strived to revive the then defunct and
splintered practices and belief systems of what is today India that existed prior to the Buddha, whom he regarded as a foreigner, such as the worship of many gods, demigods, spirits, the dead, trees, rocks, and animal sacrifices to please the spirit world.
“Today’s Hinduism can be partly credited to [Adi Shankara's] intrusion to stifle the advance of
Buddhism in India and neighboring countries,” claims Dr. Jayasinghe, speaking of Dr. Jayasinghe in the third-person. “How he
did this was by a very simple [twisting of the term sukara maddava] found in the
commentaries of the Buddhist chronicles, which was translated by an early Hindu
scholar who later became a Buddhist monk, by the name Buddhaghosha (sic).”
Dr. Jayasinghe [still speaking about Dr. Jayasinghe in the third-person] states in his book that Sankara Acharya determined to revive pre-Buddhist ways that existed for thousands of years. With the assistance
of a teacher, he studied Buddhism. He found the exact term he could twist to anger vegetarian Indians who detest eating carcasses, particularly those of swine.
Almost all of India had by then embraced Buddhism. The term he chose was sukara maddava, where sukara refers to a
pig or hog.
It is stated in Ven. Buddhaghosa's commentaries that the Buddha passed away after
consuming sukara maddava or “pig's delight” (lit., “dug by pigs”) for his last meal.
This cannot be denied as it is found in
the commentaries and also in the original texts, which may have also been
mentioned in the very earliest chronicles, the Maha atta katha, burned by the
Brahmin monk Buddhaghosa.
It is not a fact that the Buddha consuming sukara maddava as his last meal became a pivotal point of dispute for Buddhism in India, but rather how that term was later interpreted as “flesh
of pig” by Sankara Achariya to implant a seed that created immense doubt.
It raised the ambiguous question of whether a teacher who preached a philosophy of
nonviolence and uncompromising compassion actually practiced what he preached.
Sankara Achariya misled the masses by describing sukara maddava as pork.
Early Buddhist scholars failed to research the original texts to check what is stated in the Maha Parinibbana Sutta (DN 16) to determine what it actually says. The commentaries came along and were taught in almost all Buddhist schools.
Dr. Jayasinghe was project manager in the Canadian
International Development Agency in 1982, serving in Nepal. He had the rare opportunity to eat a relished mushroom dish with a very pungent flavor and a coarser texture than any other mushroom he had before.
He was curious and managed to find out what the natives call it and how it
is harvested.
On remote edges of trails in Brindnagar, Dialek, and Jumla in spring in the woods on the slopes of the Himalayan valley, Dr. Jayasinghe saw the locals tie their hogs on leashes and hunt for
mushrooms.
These pigs, like dogs, have a very strong olfactory sense. They can detect mushrooms (truffles or fungal tubers) growing beneath the soil. The pigs dig at the ground with their snouts and hind legs.
The mushrooms harvested with the help of pigs are called sukara maddava in the early Kharosthi and Magahi Pali languages, which literally means
"dug by pigs."
These mushrooms have a high medicinal value compared to other vegetables known to humankind.
It is fitting that the donor Cunda Karmaraputta offered this variety of mushrooms
to the ailing Buddha, who was 80 at the time, with the intent of improving his health.
Sankara Achariya’s sinister interpretation, backed by Hindu fundamentalists, that it was hog flesh (pork), referring to commentaries by the Buddhist Brahmin Ven. Buddhaghosa held
sway throughout the Buddhist world for lack of a careful analysis by erudite Buddhist monastic scholars.
Events leading up to the Buddha’s final-nirvana and thereafter are clearly stated in the sutra (DN 16). The cause of the Buddha's passing was neither poisonous mushrooms nor pork!
In 2007 Dr. Jayasinghe had a similar experience in France eating hog
mushrooms.
In 2010 while listening to a Dharma sermon at the Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara in Pasadena, he brought to the attention of
the monks and audience that the passing away of the Buddha could not be attributed
to his last meal popularly known as sukara maddava.
An enthusiastic
discussion began. The substance of this discussion was
made known to Ven. Agga Maha Pandita Kotugoda Dhammawasa Maha
Thero, a highly respected scholar of the Tipitaka, who was then visiting Los Angeles. The monk requested Dr. Jayasinghe to publish his
findings.
The book Last Meal of Buddha is the result of Dr. Jayasinghe's effort to show Buddhists and the world the truth about a sacred
event and eradicate the myth as to how the Buddha passed away.
Let's get to the evidence
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| Buddha under mushroom or parasol/vimana |
Sukara maddava can be interpreted as “tender pork,” but it also has a different
meaning as “the food pigs love.” These are known as truffles, fungi that grow underground which pigs are drawn to due to their fragrance. They dig them up with their snouts to feast on.
This fungus usually grows at the base of oak trees. Known as “black diamonds” due to their cost since they are sold as a culinary delicacy
and aphrodisiac. By the pound they go for as much as $3,600. See 60 Minutes (Truffles: The Most Expensive Food in the World, July 1, 2012).
Science says truffles make a pheromone, an androgen-analog, the fragrance of which attracts hogs, luring them thereby spreading their spores. Pigs have been trained to truffle hunt, which is difficult because the pigs eat them immediately, leaving the hunters emptyhanded. Dogs are trained for this same purpose as they do not eat the prize.
Cunda, who was a noble one, a stream enterer, revered the Buddha. He was well aware
of the Buddha’s illness, thought to have been amoebic dysentery (shigellosis), was trying to prepare the finest food for him, a medicinal dish.
He may have mistaken poisonous mushrooms for truffles and used them in the dish.
Mushroom poisoning can make people violently ill and may even cause death. It is not recorded how much longer the Buddha lived, but he was active and continued his travels.
It was recorded that the Buddha became sick shortly after eating the dish almost immediately after leaving Cunda’s house. The Buddha sent Ven. Ananda, his attendant, to find water to quench his thirst after he became
dehydrated due to his illness.
The location between Cunda’s residence and the river Gugutnadhee is six miles (10 km). This is where the Buddha later bathed.
He subsequently walked to a sal tree grove in Kusinara (Kushinagar), where he laid down between twin sal trees for his final nirvana.
The grove is located 14 miles (24 km) from Cunda’s
house, as measured according to historical landmarks, which is basically the distance the Buddha walked on his last day.
We can also calculate the Buddha’s normal walking pace at about 16.5 miles (28 km) per day in his prime, at 35 when he became the Buddha. At that time he walked from Enlightenment Grove (Bodhgaya) to Sarnath, where he delivered his first sutra at the Deer Park of Isipatana, where the first five disciples were wandering.
He traveled 250 km by
foot in 9 days, averaging 28 km/day when healthy.
This also suggests the Buddha recovered from a dysentery-like illness he suffered six months earlier and was in relatively good
health, capable of traveling through many provinces in Vesali, as well as going on alms round on a daily basis, before he vowed to enter his final-nirvana three months earlier.
In fact, by comparing his normal walking pace of 16.5 miles (28 km) per day to the distance
he traveled on his last day (14 miles/24 km), it can be demonstrated that he must have been in fairly good physical
health, not some debilitated state of illness.
This also suggests the dish he consumed was not pork. For
the pork carries parasites (causing trichinosis), which take
1-3 days for symptoms to occur, or tapeworm (causing cysticercosis), which take months to years before symptoms.
But the Buddha became ill suddenly, within hours of
consuming the offering, which may have caused him to pass on the same day.
Food poisoning with a staph infection would take eight hours.
Bacillus cereus contamination takes 1-6 hours, with nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea 6-24 hours
later.
Botulism from spoiled food would take 12 hours to see symptoms, which would have included difficulty in breathing and swallowing not present
in his case.
E. coli requires an incubation period of many hours for this pathogen to
invade intestinal walls and usually occurs in children, who then develop abdominal
pain, fever, diarrhea, but not always death. Cholera (from contaminated water or food) is unlikely as the Buddha is the only one who became ill. It causes dehydration but needs many hours before the onset of
symptoms.
Overall, the most likely cause of the Buddha’s death was the consumption of a bad food,
like a poisonous mushroom mistaken for truffles. The Buddha was an experienced forest dweller for six years as a wandering ascetic before his great enlightenment, so he may have recognized the mushroom and consumed it nonetheless to fulfill his vow of
entering final-nirvana. After all, he directed Cunda to bury the rest of the dish without serving
anyone else.
A poisonous mushroom, rather than infected pork, would therefore be
the most likely candidate to produce such sudden and violent symptoms as the Buddha experienced.
In summary, sukara maddava likely represents a kind of mushroom pigs love, truffles, erroneously prepared mistaken a poisonous mushroom as the main ingredient.
Mushroom poisoning is a common occurrence around the world. The liver is usually affected, damaging it beyond repair. They are erroneously collected by less experienced mushroom hunters who mistake them for edible varieties. They can lead to sudden and violent illness or even death.
Yet, the Buddha out of great compassion asked Ananda to convey a message to
Cunda so that he would not be condemned by others, stating:
“The merit of offering a buddha a last meal is equal to the merit of offering a meal that gives him the strength to gain enlightenment. The merits of both are above and beyond any other meal offering. The merit thereby accrued would reward Cunda with longevity, honor,
happiness, prosperity, and power.”
- Thai version of original post พระพุทธเจ้าเสด็จดับขันธ์ปรินิพพานด้วยโรคอะไร? น.พ.คงศกัดิ์ตันไพจิตร, ดร.นงนุช ตันไพจิตร, ดร.สุนทร พลามินทร์
EDITOR'S NOTE: I, being well acquainted with Sunil Jayasinghe, know him to be a rich Sri Lankan engineer and crank living in Los Angeles, who is not a native speaker of English. His loose grasp of scholarship is exceeded only by his looser grasp of the craft of writing but his ego makes up for his deficiencies in these departments. He is often the laughing stock of the Sinhalese speaking community and with good reason. Pious, generous to the sangha, and uncritically certain of any position he adopts, he spends more time denouncing other religions than promoting Buddhism. His foolhardiness makes him a maverick, who has a lot of time on his hands.
As we find, there is no evidence to speak of in his remarkable discovery that the Buddha did not eat pork or for the thesis of what he did eat. He contradicts himself frequently and misspells words with a carelessness that is breathtaking. What we have here is just a list of possibilities and many missed opportunities to "prove" any point. He would have made a splendid attorney for the losing side of cases. In his foolishness he points the finger, names names, and accuses the great Adi Shankara, who indeed set out to supplant Buddhism with [H]Indus-ism (a collection of -isms from the Indus river valley) in India. The Buddha was not from what is today called India or Nepal but from Central Asia, ancient Gandhara, the northwest frontier.
Send along any complaints or actual evidence, and we will make sure to forward it to bewildered Jayasinghe. Warning: He will not listen or come around, as he is insufferably boorish and egotistical, a sadly misguided man who would do well to practice rather than argue. His live presentation of this talk was little more than a slideshow of a trip to India and Nepal and opinion spoken with the authority of a man out of his element. In past lives he may have been in a monk, as suggested by his eagerness to promote the good with precious little ability to do so.
He apparently threw together this piece based on a few random lunches and a trip to Nepal. He refuses to review the work of fellow maverick and much more interesting historian Dr. Ranajit Pal. The original version of this post is the roughest of drafts presenting next to no evidence and not quoting the text (DN 16). Let us see what it does say: "Last Days of the Buddha" (Mahaparinibbana Sutta) does not tell us much. Are we able to infer how long the Buddha carried on after eating or how long it took for the onset of symptoms or the actual location of the places named? Let us see.
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