Essay name: Ahara as depicted in the Pancanikaya
Author:
Le Chanh
Affiliation: Savitribai Phule Pune University / Department of Sanskrit and Prakrit Languages
This critical study of Ahara (鈥渇ood鈥�) explores its significance in Buddhism, encompassing both physical and mental nourishment. The Panca Nikaya, part of the Sutta Pitaka, highlights how all human problems, including suffering and happiness, are connected to Ahara. Understanding this concept is crucial for comprehending and alleviating suffering, aiming for a balanced, enlightened life.
Chapter 3 - Ahara and specific teachings of the Buddha
6 (of 39)
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75
so on. Such is the uprising of the entire mass of ill. But from the utter
fading away and ceasing of ignorance the ceasing of activities, from the
ceasing of these the ceasing of consciousness, and so on. Such is the
craving of this entirre mass of ill.鈥�128
According to Lord Buddha's teachings on 膩h膩ra, the origin of the
four nutriments is traced to craving (tanh茫,) and the conditioned arising is
pursued further back, in terms of the dependent origination. But while, in
the usual formula of the dependent origination, it is clinging (or grasping,
up膩d膩na) that is conditioned by craving, here, in this sutta, nutriment
(膩h膩ra) takes the place of clinging. So it also does in the Mah膩
Tanh膩sankhaya Sutta (M. I, sutta No. 38,) while the C奴la-Sihan膩da Sutta
(M. I, sutta No. 11) has here the fourfold division of clinging, with,
otherwise, the same wording as the present sutta. Both P膩li words, 膩h膩ra
(nutriment) and up膩d膩na (clinging) have originally the same meaning of
"taking up," "seizing," and both are also used to signify the fuel of a fire
or a lamp (see SN 22.88.)
129 Several of the Samyutta texts on conditioned origination bring in
another kind of causal relation, that of four kinds of 鈥榝ood (膩h膩ra.) Only
the first kind of food is food in the literal sense of what creatures eat. The
second is 'contact' (phassa 鈥榮timulus'.) The third is volition of the mind.
The fourth is consciousness. Through these beings persist and are
enabled to be produced (to be reborn). The source, the origination, of
these four foods, however, is desire. From this, we are led through the
sequence desire, experience and the rest down to ignorance.
Another text 130
elucidates the four foods. Ordinary food is
connected with the passion of the five senses. Contact (stimulus) is
128 129
S. II, 11 (Tran. by Mrs. C.A.F. Rhys Davids, The Book of The Kindred Sayings, part II, PTS, pp. 8-9.)
The four divisions of grasping: the grasping of sense-pleasure, the grasping of view, the grasping of
rule and custom, and the grasping of the theory of self.
130 S. II, 99.
