This paper reconsiders the last meal of the Buddha from the little studied perspective of ‘kammic fluff’ (kammapilotika). Although marginal in the Nikāyas, this idea is more prominent in the commentarial accounts of the Buddha’s death, and suggests that the Buddha’s final meal aided the Buddha, rather than directly caused his death. Additionally, we examine other evidence from some Theravāda traditions of mainland South East Asia: modern mural paintings from Cambodia and Thailand which indicate that the Buddha’s death possibly resulted from a complication of a chronic peptic ulcer involving the vomiting of blood, and a little known Pali text of ‘Indo-Chinese’ origin, which supports this interpretation, and assumes that the Buddha’s final illness was caused by the remnants ofhis former kamma.
This paper describes the results of applying computational text mining to the Tipiṭaka, or Pali Canon, the canonical scripture of Therevāda Buddhism. Individual volumes of the Tipiṭaka are divided into “clusters” using purely computation tools, and in many cases these clusters appear to match the rough scholarly consensus around the relative age of the volumes. Texts are also summarized into “word clouds” based on relative word frequency, and these also seem to reflect the underlying themes of the texts. While these initial results are essentially confirmational ratherthan novel, they suggest these approaches will be valuable additions to the Pali scholar’s toolbox.
Nissāraṇīya is a term added to conclude the saṅghādisesa rules for nuns only in the Pāli Vinaya. It refers to a temporary expulsion of the guilty nun, yet this is beyond the penalty prescribed. A comparative study of the relevant passages in the other Vinayas attests to the controversy hinted at in the Sp. The Pāli Vinaya is alone in asserting the expulsion of the nun, whereas the other traditions are concerned with the nun’s release from her offence. The key to such controversy lies in orthographical variation: nissāraṇīya vs niḥsaraṇīya. Our study points to the assumption that the Vinaya may have borrowed a term from the Suttas to supplement the offence name saṅghādisesa. It was nissaraṇīyaṃ saṅghādisesaṃ in the Pātimokkha, which is confirmed by internal evidence from the Sp. Nissaraṇīya was later replaced by nissāraṇīya and its meaning and reference underwent a dramatic change. Moreover, nissāraṇīya then found its way back into the Suttas in which there is some confusion between nissaraṇīya and nissāraṇīya.
‘Contrariwise, continued Tweedledee, if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.’ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland. § 1. The purpose of this paper is to study the distribution of the two vocatives bhikkhave and bhikkhavo in the Pāli canon, and to analyse the astute comments on the issue by Aggavaṃsa, the eminent 12th century AD Burmese Pāli scholar, who addressed it in a paragraph of his Pāli grammar, the Saddanīti. Aggavaṃsa’s analysis of the evidence sheds light on their distribution in the Pāli canon. Moreover, it raises some intriguing questions regarding the distribution of bhikkhave and bhikkhavo in Burmese Pāli manuscripts, which deviates from that of Sinhalese manuscripts. I have therefore found it necessary to re-examine the question in the light of the evidence. I shall trace the textual background of the readings that Aggavaṃsa’s analysis presupposes and draw the conclusion that the distribution of the two vocatives reflects canonical prosody and has no historical or regional implications for the occurrence of bhikkhave and bhikkhavo in the Pāli canon. In fact, their occurrence is parallel to the distribution of the two vocatives bhante and bhaddante.
