Hwang Soonil
Dongguk University
Food has been regarded as one of the four important conditions to maintain and preserve the Buddhist monastic tradition. Supplying food to Buddhist monks could be considered one of the easiest ways for lay Buddhists to accumulate merit. Within the scope of early Buddhism, there was no clear cut prohibition on any certain kind of food, even including meat. What to eat was treated as less important than eating with a controlled mind. As long as one’s mind is detached without having attachment and desire, it seems to be acceptable to eat any food conventionally agreed among the members of a society. When the Buddhist monastic precepts were fully grown and systematized, various kinds of food prohibitions were introduced into Buddhist monastic life. The detailed contents seem to vary according to Buddhist tradition, such as Mahāyāna, Matrayāna and Theravāda. In this presentation, I am going to discuss diverse Buddhist attitudes towards some kinds of food, such as alcohol, sweets and meat according to various Buddhist traditions and then show the meaning and implication of establishing such food prohibitions.
(Presented in the 2016 Chulalongkorn Asian Heritage Forum: Sweet Culture and the Joy of Life, 17-18 August 2016, Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Bangkok, organized by Institute of Thai Studies and Indian Studies Center, Chulalongkorn University)