among some Santa! seems to survive to bury any surplus sukara- 

 maddava in a hole.) Perhaps it was the first time in his life that 

 the Buddha, of ksatriya origin, was being offered mushrooms to 

 eat. But these particular mushrooms were familiar to him 

 because of their unique role in the Hindu religion in which he 

 had been brought up. 



Andre Bareau appreciates to the full the solemnity of this dish 

 of sukara-niaddava. though he did not know what it was. He 



says: 



...ccttc nourrilure, la dL-rnierc que consomme la Bicnhcurcux 

 a\ant son Pat inir\ana, est iinc nourrilure en quelque sorle sacree, 

 dcnil les riches qualites, la puissance essentielle, \ ont lui permettre 

 d accomplir cet exploit surhumain. la supreme Extinction. Cette 

 richesse, cctte puissance sont trop ^irandes pour ctre supportees 

 par Ics autre etres. hommes ou dieux, qui n'auront jamais, el de 

 loin, a executcr une action comparable. [Ra hen lies sur la hioi^- 

 raphic clu BucUlha. Tome 1. p 271. Paris. 1970. Publications de 

 rtx'ole Fran(;aise d'ExtrCMiie-Orient. Vol I XXVIi] 



Here was the Buddha, at one of the two supreme moments of 

 his life, unexpectedly offered at his last meal a dish that Hindus 

 of the upper castes were forbidden to cat, an edible mushroom, a 

 dish that was the surrogate for Soma when formally sacrificed in 

 an utterly different manner and setting^ Buddhaghosa quotes 

 the Great Commentary {Maha-atthakatha) as saying of Cun- 

 da's motives in offering this dish to the Buddha and his monks: 



They say that Cunda, the smith, ha\ing heard that the Exalted 

 One would •dWiun parinihhana that day. thought it would be good 

 if he could live longer after eating this dish, and offered it wishing 

 for the Master's longevity, [p. 245 infra] 



Waipola Rahula's comment on the Great Commentary from 

 which we have extracted this quotation is as follows: 



The Maha-atthakatha (Great Commentar}) is the most impor- 

 tant of the ancient original Sinhala commentaries dating back at 

 least to the 3rd century B.C., on which arc based the present 

 available Pali commentaries of the 5th century A.C., including the 

 Commentaries on the Di^ha Nikaya and the Vcfana from which 

 these two commentarial passages are taken, [p. 246 infra'] 



224 



