Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c23.18

c23.18

¹ Rhys Davids holds that "there is great doubt as to the exact meaning of this name of the last dish the Buddha partook of", and that "the fact is that the exact sense is not known". He cites Dhammapāla who says that the word means "not pork or meat at all but the tender top sprout of the bamboo plant after it has been trampled upon by swine", and, according to others, "a kind of mushroom that grows in ground trodden under foot by swine", or "a particular kind of flavouring or sauce". It may even mean "tender flowers", *mārdava* in Sanskrit meaning "tender, pitiful, etc." [*SBE.*, xxxv, p. 244 n.].