Kang Deagong (Beopjin)
Visiting Researcher, Chulalongkorn University
As the Buddhist law code for the monastic members, the Vinaya proscribes certain kinds of foods that are often described as something ‘sweet’. The underlying principle of dietary prohibition, in my opinion, is based on two reasons: Gourmet food elicits attachment to its taste in practitioners, while consumption of it by monastic members, whose life is expected to be austere, can bring about denunciation from society. In this regard, the meaning of ‘Mei-shi (美食, paṇīta-bhojana)’ seems to stand for a sort of food that is delicious or sumptuous such that consumption of such food within the monastic context is likely to cause problems for both an individual’s practice and society.
Sweet or luxurious food can be categorized into four groups: 1) a sort of dairy products; 2) animal food (meat); 3) a sort of honey; and 4) a sort of oil. Among these, dairy products are especially interesting since in various Buddhist narratives ‘milk’ is often used as a symbol that illustrates the path to Buddhahood or Nirvana, in spite of its restriction. However, the word that describes dairy products in Pali or the Chinese Vinaya is somewhat ambiguous since it is not clear whether the word means curd, cheese, butter, yogurt or ghee. Since dietary restrictions described in the Vinaya are based on a specific social circumstances, such restrictions may not be necessarily applicable in the modern context when dairy products are not expensive and not sumptuous anymore. Nonetheless, the restriction of meat seems to be somewhat a different case than other restrictions since the consumption of meat is related to fundamental Buddhist ethics.
(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)