Part 1 - Merit in offering pure and right food

Q. 208. Bhante! What merit does a follower derive in offering pure and right food, drink, dainties and delicacies to a śramaṇa or a māhana who has been duly initiated?

A. 208. Gautama! He exhausts his karma wholly and indulges not in sinful deeds.

Q. 209. Bhante! What merit does a follower derive in offering impure and improper food, drink, etc., to a śramaṇa or a mahana who has been duly initiated?

A. 209. Gautama! He has a good deal of karma exhaustion and little sin.

Q. 210. Bhante! What merit does a follower derive in offering pure or impure, proper or improper, food, drink, etc., to one who is not restrained, not desisted, who has not stopped sinful deeds, nor has renounced them, though duly initated?

A. 210. Gautama! This leads to all sin and there is no exhaustion of karma whatsoever.

Suppose a monk comes to a householder to beg food, and the said householder offers him two calces and makes a request as follows: “Oh long-lived monk! You take one cake for your use and give the other to some fellow monk.” The monk accepts the cakes, comes back to his lodge and looks for some fellow monk. If he finds one, he gives the cake to him; but, if he does not, then, he neither takes the cake himself, nor gives-it to another, but finds some safe, secluded, clean, life-free and appropriate spot, wipes it clean and deposits the cake there,

Suppose a monk comes to a householder to beg food, and the said householder offers him three cakes and makes a request as follows: “Oh long-lived monk! You take one cake yourself and offer the other two to some fellow monks.” The monk accepts the cakes, returns to his lodge and looks for two fellow monks. If he finds them, he gives them the two cakes; but if he does not, then, lie neither takes the two cakes himself, nor gives them to others, but finds a safe, secluded, clean, life-free and appropriate spot, wipes it clean and deposits the cakes there. The above has to be repeated for four, five, till ten cakes. Mind that in all the cases, only one cake is to be taken by him, and the remaining ones till nine are to be given to fellow monks. The rest as aforesaid.

Suppose a monk comes to a householder to beg, and the said house-holder offers him two begging bowls, instructing him to have one for his own use, and to give the other one to a fellow monk. He accepts the bowls and returns to his lodge. The rest as aforesaid. (When he does not find a fellow monk), he neither uses the bowl himself, nor gives it to another, till deposits the bowl as stated before. The same has to be repeated, till ten bowls. And what has been said of bowls will equally apply to cloth for drying bowls, duster, colapatta, blanket, staff, bed and everything else.

Q. 211. Bhante! Suppose a monk goes to a householder to beg and falls victim to a lapse; and further suppose that right then, he has a reaction as follows: ‘At this very spot, let me discuss my lapse, seek atonement, decry and condemn it, tear off the bondage due to it, get purified, take a vow not to repeat it in future, and court suitable penance to wipe it clean. And then I go to a senior monk, discuss it with him, till court suitable penance to wipe it clean.’ Having thought like this, he sets out to meet a senior monk, but, on the way, due to some unforeseen malady overtaking, he loses expression and fails to seek atonement. Is such a monk to be deemed as steadfast, or non-steadfast?

A. 211. Gautama! He is steadfast, not its reverse.

Q. 212. Bhante! Suppose the said monk has sought atonement, etc., with self, but not with a senior monk (for reason just stated). Is he to be deemed as steadfast, or non-steadfast?

A. 212. Gautama! He is steadfast, not its reverse.

Q. 213. Bhante! Suppose he has sought atonement, etc., with self, but before he could do the same with a senior monk, the latter passed away. Is he to be deemed as steadfast, or non-steadfast?

A. 213. Gautama! He is steadfast, not its reverse.

Q. 214. Bhante! Suppose he has sought atonement, etc., with self, but passes away before he could do the same with a senior monk. Is he to be deemed as steadfast or non-steadfast?

A. 214. Gautama l He is steadfast, not non-steadfast.

Q. 215. Bhante! Suppose the said monk has sought atonement, etc., with self, and thereafter he sets out and comes to a senior monk, but in the mean time, due to some unforeseen malady, the senior monk has lost his expression. Then is he to be deemed as steadfast, or non-steadfast?

A. 215. Gautama 1 He is steadfast, not non-steadfast. The four statements made above about the monk who has not reached a senior monk have to be repeated in cases where the monk has reached a senior monk. (Total eight statements.)

The same eight statements will apply if some lapse has been committed by a monk on his way to depositing his excreta, or on his exodus from one place to another, and he has a reaction, and all that as aforesaid. Then, he is steadfast, not ṇon-steadfast. Likewise the same eight, when he is wandering from village to village, till he is steadfast, not non-steadfast.

Q. 216. Bhante! Suppose a nun has gone to a householder to beg, and falls victim to a lapse, and has a reaction, and all that as aforesaid, is she steadfast, or non-steadfast?

A. 216. Gautama! The nun is steadfast, not non-stead-fast, except that in place of the word ‘senior monk’, use the word ‘head nun’ (pravartini).

Q. 217. Bhante! Why do you say, she is steadfast, not its reverse?

A. 217. Gautama! Suppose a man takes some wool from a lamb, or hair from an elephant, or some fibre of hemp or cotton, or simply a few sticks of hay, cuts them into two, three or a countable number of pieces, and hurls them into the fire; then, will you agree that these have been cut while they were being cut, hurled when thrown out, and: burnt when placed into the fire?

—Yes, sir, I do.

—And suppose a man takes a piece of cloth, old or new, or just woven, and puts it into a dyeing pan; then, will you agree that the cloth has been picked up while being taken, put into the pan while being so put, and dyed while being dyed?

—Yes, sir, I do.

For the same reason do I maintain that a monk or a nun who has the necessary preparation for atonement, etc., is steadfast, and not its reverse.

Notes (based on commentary of Abhayadeva Sūri):

Q. 208. In the Jaina context, the four words, asaṇapāṇa-khāyima-sāyima go together. Asaṇa stands for anything that satisfies hanger; pāṇa stands for anything which quenches thirst; khāyima stands for anything which, like milk, meets both hunger and thirst; sāyima neither satisfies hunger nor quenches thirst, though like betel it may impart taste to the mouth.

Q. 208. In the three questions, the word ṭahārubam occurs thrice. The first two refer to a Jaina monks while the last one to a monk of some heretical order. In both, the cases, the donor is a follower of the one or the other. Hence the use of the word padilābhemānassa. Any offer to an ordinary beggar has a different word which is daloyayi or dalejja.

Q. 209. The words afāsuyena [aphāsuyena?] and anesanijjen are worthy of note. Ordinarily they may mean ‘with the association of living things’ and ‘with fault’. But such meaning becomes irrelevant here in the context of ‘much exhaustion of karma and little sin’ following an offer. Besides, such food is unacceptable to a monk. Hence the commentators interpret the two words with reference to what is contained in the Ācārāṅga Sūtra. According to this source, food becomes anesaniya when the food collected by a monk is excessive or has little edible portion or it has been received without the knowledge and permission of the owner or where the thing does not remain wholesome till use. A food may be afāsuya [aphāsuya?] when the vessel containing it touches some prohibited thing. But the exception is food which though impure is given under exceptional circumstances to save the life of a monk, which earns merit.

Q. 210. The word thanḍilla refers to the type of land on which the unused portion of the food or food not meant for the receiving monk is to be deposited. This act needs exceptional care.

Ten adjectives of the type of land referred to by the word are:

aṇāvāyamasaṃloe aṇāvāe ceva hoi saṃloe |
āvāyamasaṃloe āvāṇa ceva hoi saṃloe || 1 ||
aṇāvāyamasaṃloe parassa aṇuvadhāie |
same ajjhusire yāvi acirakālakayammi ya || 2 ||
vitthiṇṇe dūramogāḍhe ṇāsaṇṇe bilavajjie |
tasapāṇabīyarahie uccārāīṇi vosire || 3 ||

They are: a piece of land where no one comes nor observes, where not a single life is killed, which is flat, which is not covered with grass, leaves or hay, which has just been made free from life by the burning of fire, whose dimension is one cubit by one cubit, where the soil underneath upto two inches is free from life, which is not near a village or an orchard, where there are no holes sheltering rats, and which is free from moving animals and germinable seeds.

The first condition, viz., where no one comes nor observes, takes four forms which are:

where no one comes nor observes, where no one comes but the place is visible from a distance, where someone may come but does not observe, and where someone comes as well as observes.

Of these four, the first one is wholesome but the other three are not.