[INDOLOGY] Resumption of 'In an oil vat'.

[Artur Karp]

Dear List Members,


A short fragment of the MPSutta (84–85, 90), the one that describes the
last meal of the Buddha and his fatal illness, mentions one person 23 times
– by name and professional designation: *cundo kammāraputto*, Cunda, the
blacksmith.

Is the number of these references not significant? Some translators,
perhaps not wanting to strain the readers’ patience, tend to reduce the
phrase to the personal name only, as if the fact that the Buddha’s host was
a *smith* was an unimportant detail. *Cunda the blacksmith* becomes *Cunda*.


Oskar von Hinüber is more radical. In his widely read and already classical
paper (*Cremated like a King: The Funeral of the Buddha within the Ancient
Indian Cultural Context*, ICPBS 2009) he does not mention Cunda, not even
once. He refers there to what he calls *‘a vessel made of iron and filled
with sesame oil’;* a type of vat which, according to tradition, was used
for cremating the bodies of anointed kings – and, later on, of the Buddha
himself. However, he does not link the material from which such vessels
were made with the person of a smith, of an iron–maker appearing so
conspicuously in the text. The majority of the specialists (among them John
Strong) write rather about *‘an iron oil vessel/tub/vat’*. But this is
beyond the point. Von Hinüber’s attention is directed at *oil*, not at
*iron*.

Apart from iron, the text does not mention any other economically important
metal - neither copper nor bronze.

In this sense we may say that the MPSutta is dominated by iron – and steel.

Could it be that the narrative relating the marvelous transformation of the
Buddha’s human body into the everlasting relics was based on the procedures
of iron smelting and hardening, the latter giving it, finally, the
potential to create everlasting forms? Could the fact that the burning out
of the Buddha’s body is stopped by cold water be devoid of any meaning?

These are questions that – to my mind – demand answers. They may lead to an
entirely new approach to research on the world of the MPSutta.


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