On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 7:27 AM, Indrajit Gupta <[email protected]> wrote: > 2. The Buddha's worldly wise outlook, his ability to deal with the politics > of > the India of 'janapadas', his dependence on Prasenjit and his uneasy > relationship with Bimbisara, who supported him, and Ajatasatru, who > didn't, are all reported and are well documented.
Re: the documentation, my understanding was that the Pali canon was not written till around 1st century BCE - a good 300+ years after the death of the Buddha. Cheeni wrote: > I am no expert, but there are theories on the Internet that say that > Buddha ate "sukara maddava" i.e. Pig's Delight (i.e. mushrooms). It > sounds altogether less menacing and suspicious to imagine that the > Buddha died accidentally of poisonous mushrooms. The death after eating pork (spoiled or poisoned) is pretty widely accepted. Buddhist priests, having to live off of hand outs from the lay community, were not (and still are not in places like Thailand, Laos, etc.) picky eaters. After all, clinging to food taboos is just another form of clinging. Thaths -- "Marge, you being a cop makes you the man! Which makes me the woman... and I have no interest in that, besides wearing the occasional underwear, which as we discussed is strictly a comfort thing." -- Homer J. Simpson Sudhakar Chandra Slacker Without Borders
