The short version: the earliest Buddhist rules say the Buddha ate meat and allowed his monks to eat it, under one condition. A monk must not eat meat from an animal he had seen, heard or suspected was killed specially for him.[1][2] Monks begged for their food and were expected to accept what householders put in their bowls, and in fifth-century India that often included meat or fish. The idea that a good Buddhist is a vegetarian is real, but it is a later layer, and it took hold in some Buddhist countries and not others.
The evidence from the early texts
The rule: meat that is “pure in three respects”
The physician Jīvaka tells the Buddha he has heard people say that animals are killed for the ascetic Gotama and that he knowingly eats meat prepared for him. The Buddha calls this a misrepresentation and states the rule:[1]
Majjhima Nikāya 55 (Jīvaka Sutta), Pali:
tīhi kho ahaṁ, jīvaka, ṭhānehi maṁsaṁ paribhoganti vadāmi: adiṭṭhaṁ, asutaṁ, aparisaṅkitaṁ.
“In three cases I say that meat may be eaten: it’s not seen, heard, or suspected.” (Bhikkhu Sujato’s translation.)[1]
The monastic code states the same rule as a legal provision. After a general named Sīha serves meat to the saṅgha and rumours spread that he had an animal killed for the purpose, the Buddha allows “fish and meat that are pure in three respects.”[2]
What it proves. That the moral question, for the early community, was not diet but complicity. A monk who eats meat he did not ask for, from an animal not killed for him, has not caused a death. A monk who lets a householder kill for him has. The rule survives in the Vinayas of several schools, which is why it is considered early.[3] Majority
The refusal: Devadatta’s five demands
The clearest evidence is a refusal. Devadatta, the Buddha’s cousin and later his rival, proposes five stricter rules for all monks, one of them that monks should never eat fish or meat. The Buddha declines all five as compulsory rules: a monk may live austerely if he chooses, but meat that is pure in the three respects remains allowed.[4]
What it proves. That vegetarianism was proposed in the Buddha’s community and rejected, and that the tradition remembered the proposal as coming from its arch-villain. A rule that later Buddhists might have wished he had made was preserved as one he explicitly declined. Majority
“Not eating meat”: a poem on what really defiles
An old verse dialogue in the Sutta Nipāta makes the point as a riddle. A brahmin ascetic who lives on millet and wild greens accuses the Buddha of a past age, Kassapa, of eating āmagandha, “putrid stench,” by accepting fine cooked food. Kassapa answers by listing killing, stealing, lying and fraud, and ends each verse:
esāmagandho na hi maṁsabhojanaṁ.
“This is putrefaction, not eating meat.” (Bhikkhu Sujato’s translation.)[5]
What it proves. That the early tradition treated purity of diet as a brahmin and ascetic concern, and answered it by moving purity into conduct. The same move appears in its treatment of sacrifice and of birth-status (§1).
The last meal
The Buddha’s final meal, at the house of Cunda the smith, included a dish called sūkaramaddava, literally something like “pig-soft.” He fell ill afterwards and died at Kusinārā.[6] The fifth-century commentator Buddhaghosa glosses it as the tender meat of a prime pig, then records other opinions, including soft rice cooked in a broth of the five products of the cow.[7] Modern suggestions include truffles or mushrooms that pigs root for.[8] No one knows. What the commentary shows is that Theravāda scholars of the fifth century saw nothing scandalous in the Buddha eating pork. Contested on the dish; Majority on the commentary’s attitude.
How vegetarianism entered Buddhism
The Mahāyāna sūtras
Several Mahāyāna sūtras reject meat outright. The Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, translated into Chinese by Dharmakṣema in 421, has the Buddha explain that his earlier permission of meat “pure in three respects” was a provisional teaching for its time, and declare that eating meat cuts off the seed of great compassion.[9] The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra devotes a whole chapter to the faults of eating meat and has the Buddha insist that he never permitted it at all.[10] Scholars generally treat that chapter as a later addition to the sūtra; D. T. Suzuki, its first English translator, already judged it so.[11]
What it proves. That the Mahāyāna authors knew the older rule and wrote against it. The new position is presented as the Buddha’s final teaching superseding his earlier one, which is how Mahāyāna texts often handle a break with the past (§6).[9]
Chinese emperors
The decisive change came in China. Emperor Wu of Liang (r. 502–549), drawing on these sūtras and on the Brahmā’s Net Sūtra, delivered an essay against wine and meat to assemblies of monks in the late 510s or early 520s and required the clergy to give up both, threatening to laicise those who refused.[12][3] Vegetarianism became the norm of Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese monasticism (§7). Majority
A short timeline
| Date | What happens | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| c. 400 BCE | The Buddha’s death after the meal of sūkaramaddava[6] | Majority |
| c. 400–100 BCE | The three-respects rule and the refusal of Devadatta’s ban fixed in the Vinaya[2][4] | Majority |
| c. 257 BCE | Ashoka cuts the royal kitchen’s killing to two peacocks and a deer[13] | Consensus |
| 421 CE | Dharmakṣema’s Chinese Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra condemns meat[9] | Consensus |
| 510s–520s | Emperor Wu of Liang imposes vegetarianism on Chinese monks[12] | Majority |
| 1872 | Japan’s Decree 133 ends state enforcement of clerical meat avoidance[14] | Consensus |
| 2007 | The 17th Karmapa asks his monasteries to stop serving meat[15] | Consensus |
Buddhists and meat today
Practice follows these historical layers, not one doctrine:
- Theravāda (Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos). Monks still eat what is given, including meat, under the three-respects rule. Many lay people choose to avoid meat, especially on holy days, but the monastic code does not require it (§10).[16]
- Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese Mahāyāna. Monks and nuns are vegetarian, a rule rooted in the sixth-century reforms. Lay devotees often keep vegetarian days.[3]
- Japan. Monastic vegetarian cooking (shōjin ryōri) survives, but since 1872 most clergy eat meat and marry (§11).[14][17]
- Tibet and the Himalaya. Meat has always been widely eaten, partly for reasons of climate and diet. Individual teachers argued for vegetarianism for centuries, and in 2007 the 17th Karmapa asked the monasteries of his lineage to stop serving meat.[18][15]
What scholars disagree about
Whether the three-respects rule goes back to the Buddha. It is preserved across several Vinayas, so it is early, but rules attributed to the Buddha were also formulated by the community after him (§3). That he ate what he was given is likely; the exact wording of the rule is less certain.[3] Majority
What the last meal was. Pork, a pig-related dish, a mushroom or something else: the word is obscure and the ancient commentators disagreed. Readings often follow modern dietary preferences.[7][8] Contested
Common misconceptions
- “Buddhism requires vegetarianism.” Only some traditions require it, and only of their clergy. Theravāda monks are expected to eat what they are given.[2]
- “The Buddha banned meat.” In the early Vinaya he refused to.[4] The ban appears in Mahāyāna sūtras written centuries later.[10]
- “Buddhists made Hindus vegetarian.” The influence ran through many channels, and Jains pushed non-violence further than Buddhists did. See why many Hindus are vegetarian.
Why it matters
The meat question shows how a religion can keep the same ideal, not causing harm, and change the rule that expresses it. In the early community the ideal was applied to intention: do not cause killing. In Mahāyāna and Chinese Buddhism it was applied to diet: do not eat what killing produces. Both positions claim the Buddha’s authority, and the difference between them still divides a Thai monk’s alms bowl from a Chinese monastery’s kitchen.
For the Buddha’s own life and death, see Chapter 2: The Buddha. For how vegetarianism became Chinese monastic law, see Chapter 7: Into China.
References
- ^ a b c MN 55 — Jīvaka Sutta (Majjhima Nikāya). c. 400–200 BCE. Pali. The Buddha tells the physician Jīvaka that meat may be eaten in three cases: when it is not seen, heard or suspected to have been killed for the monk. read the text
- ^ a b c d Mahāvagga 6.31.14 (Vin I 238) — Vinaya Piṭaka. c. 300–100 BCE. Pali. After the general Sīha serves meat to the saṅgha, the Buddha rules that monks may eat fish and meat unless they have seen, heard or suspect it was killed for them. read the text
- ^ a b c d John Kieschnick "Buddhist Vegetarianism in China". In Of Tripod and Palate, ed. Roel Sterckx, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. How Chinese monks became vegetarian, centred on Emperor Wu of Liang.
- ^ a b c Cullavagga 7.3.14–15 (Vin II 196–197) — Vinaya Piṭaka. c. 300–100 BCE. Pali. Devadatta demands five stricter rules, including that monks never eat fish or meat. The Buddha refuses: meat is allowed when it is pure in the three ways. read the text
- ^ Sn 2.2 — Āmagandha Sutta (Sutta Nipāta). c. 400–200 BCE. Pali. A vegetarian brahmin ascetic accuses the past Buddha Kassapa of eating 'putrefaction'; Kassapa answers that killing, theft and lying are putrefaction, 'not eating meat'. read the text
- ^ a b DN 16 — Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (Dīgha Nikāya). c. 400–200 BCE, with later layers. Pali. The last months of the Buddha's life: his age (80), the last meal of sūkaramaddava at Cunda's house, the death at Kusinārā and the division of the relics into eight shares. read the text
- ^ a b Sumaṅgalavilāsinī on DN 16 — Buddhaghosa's commentary on the Dīgha Nikāya. 5th c. CE. Pali. Explains sūkaramaddava as tender pork from a prime pig, then reports other views: soft rice cooked in a broth of the five products of the cow, or an elixir. Even the commentators did not know what the word meant. read the text
- ^ a b R. Gordon Wasson "The Last Meal of the Buddha". Journal of the American Oriental Society 102: 591–603, 1982. doi Collects the ancient explanations of sūkaramaddava and argues for a mushroom. A reading, not a settled fact.
- ^ a b c T 374 (Da banniepan jing) — Dharmakṣema's Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra. 421 CE. Classical Chinese. The long Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, translated at Liangzhou in 421, teaching that all beings, even icchantikas, have Buddha-nature; it vindicated Daosheng. read the text
- ^ a b Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, ch. 8 — Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra. c. 4th–5th c. CE (chapter probably later). Buddhist Sanskrit. A chapter on the faults of eating meat, in which the Buddha says he has never permitted meat to anyone and never will; generally treated as a later addition to the sūtra. read the text
- ^ D. T. Suzuki, trans. The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra: A Mahāyāna Text. George Routledge and Sons, London, 1932. full text The first English translation; its notes judge the chapter on meat-eating a later addition, present already in the Chinese version of 443.
- ^ a b Duan jiurou wen, in Guang hongming ji 26 (T 2103) — Emperor Wu of Liang. c. 517–523 CE. Classical Chinese. Emperor Wu's essay on abstaining from wine and meat, read to assemblies of monks and nuns, requiring them to give up both on the authority of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra. The basis of Chinese monastic vegetarianism. read the text
- ^ Rock Edict 1 (Girnar) — Ashokan edicts. c. 257 BCE. Prakrit in Brāhmī. "Here no living being must be killed and sacrificed" (trans. Hultzsch, who glosses "here" as "in my territory"). The royal kitchen is cut to two peacocks and a deer. A king turns state power against the Vedic sacrifice. read the text
- ^ a b Dajōkan Proclamation 133 — Meiji Council of State. 1872 CE. Japanese. "From now on Buddhist clerics shall be free to eat meat, marry, grow their hair, and so on" (trans. Richard Jaffe): the state stops enforcing the precepts. about
- ^ a b The 17th Karmapa's instruction on meat, 2007 — Karma Kagyu monasteries. 2007. English. After several years as a vegetarian, the 17th Karmapa asks the monasteries of his lineage to stop serving meat in their dining halls. about
- ^ Richard Gombrich Theravāda Buddhism: A Social History. Routledge, 2nd ed., 2006. A social history of Theravāda from the Buddha to modern Sri Lanka: strong on the Brahmanical background, the monastic-royal compact and caste in the saṅgha.
- ^ Richard M. Jaffe Neither Monk nor Layman: Clerical Marriage in Modern Japanese Buddhism. Princeton University Press, 2001. open library How the 1872 decree and its aftermath made married priests the norm.
- ^ Geoffrey Barstow Food of Sinful Demons: Meat, Vegetarianism, and the Limits of Buddhism in Tibet. Columbia University Press, 2017. The history of meat-eating and the vegetarian minority tradition in Tibetan Buddhism.