About Us Alphabetic Index Subject Index Abbreviations Entry Of The Month


The Dīgha Nikāya records that before the Buddha passed away he ate a meal given to him by a blacksmith named Cunda. This meal consisted of a preparation called sūkaramaddava which can be translated as ‘pig’s delight’ (D.II,127). There has been a great deal of speculation as to what this meal consisted of. Some say that it was a pork dish, which is quite possible, as the Buddha was not a vegetarian and did not advocate vegetarianism. One of the more bizarre theories and one that has gained wide acceptance, is that it was a type of truffle. Early European scholars of Buddhism theorized that because the French use trained pigs to find truffles, the ‘pig’s delight’ mentioned in the Buddhist scriptures might be a variety of truffle. This theory is based on the false premise that what is so of the French countryside must have been so in ancient India. In fact, truffles do not grow in India and the use of trained pigs to find them even in France is a recent practice. Thus the theory that the Buddha’s last meal was truffles is without any foundation.
Equally unfounded theories, presumably derived from this first one, is that the Buddha died of eating poison mushrooms, from food poisoning or even that he was poisoned. Again, the facts contradict such fanciful speculations. All we can say is that sūkaramaddava was some kind of preparation, the ingredients of which have long ago been forgotten.
In the months before his passing the Buddha had suffered ‘a severe illness causing him sharp pains as if he were to die’ and which he ‘endured mindfully, fully aware and without complaint’ (D.II,99). He was 80 years old, unusually long-lived for the time, and Ānanda described him at this stage as having ‘slack and wrinkled limbs and being stooped’ (S.V,217). He himself said that his body could ‘only be kept going by being patched up’ (D.II,100). After his last meal, he had a severe bout of ‘diarrhoea with blood’ (lohitapakkhandikā), a continuation of the sickness he had been suffering from for some time, and later the next day he passed away. Obviously the Buddha died of the typical complications brought on by exhaustion, sickness and old age, not because of what he had eaten the day before.

The Last Days of the Buddha, trans. by Sister Vajira and Francis Story, 1988.

Did you know...

that Buddhist psychology identifies at least 10 different types of love? Click Here

Loading Search...