Early Monastic Buddhism v1.c22.s8.1

v1.c22.s8.1

In regard to food and the daily necessaries of life also, an attempt has been made to keep the sense of individuality in the background as far as possible. If a devotee wished to offer food to the monks, he had to invite the whole *saṅgha* and not any particular individual or individuals. In days of scarcity, provision was made for invitations by batches, and so *saṅghabhatta* (food for the whole *sangha*) was allowed to be replaced by *uddesabhatta*, *nimantana*, *salākābhatta*, etc.¹ *i.e.* the devotees might provide food not for all the monks of the *sangha* but for some, who, however, were not to be selected by the hosts. This naturally gave rise to troubles. To avoid these, it became necessary to fix the responsibility of selection upon a particular monk possessing the requisite qualities.² He was called a (i) *Bhatuddesaka* or the distributor of food. His appointment had also to be made formally by the *sangha* with the unanimous consent of all the members. Besides him there were other office-bearers whose duty was to distribute rice-gruel (*yāgu*), fruits (*phala*) and hard food (*khajjaka*) and they were called (ii) *yāgubhājaka*, (iii) *phalabhājaka* and (iv) *khajjakabhājaka* according to their respective charges.