The Celebration of Congee in East Asian Buddhism

Scholars of Chinese Buddhism have given much attention to vilified foodstuffs such as meat and pungent vegetables (alliums), and less attention to celebrated foods. While proscriptions are important for their role in constructing boundaries used in group identification, we should not overlook the celebration of particular foods such as congee (zhou 粥）.In Buddhist writings, congee is enshrined in the wording of mealtime rites in Chinese monastic communities and is associated with claims of karmic or health- promoting efficacy. Such claims are also important because they inform normative practices. Sources as temporally and geographically distanced as the Pali canon’s Congee Sutra (Yagu Sutta) and Japanese monk Mujaku Dochu’s (1653-1744) Zenrin shokisen 襌林象器箋 agree that congee is a food with special significance to Buddhists. The most celebrated forms of this food, however, have not remained constant. The ingredients of a congee commemorating the Buddha’s awakening transformed in the wake of Mahayana revisionism and through cross-cultural reinterpretation (i.e., substitutions), shifting from dairy congee to mold-cultured congee and bean congee. Analyzing tenth-century citations on congee in the Shishi liutie 釋氏六帖，an extra-canonical Buddhist encyclopedia, and also referencing the Foshuo shishi huo wufubao jing 佛說食施獲五福報經（Sutra Spoken by the Buddha on the Five Advantageous Rewards Reaped from the Bestowal of Food), I attempt in this paper to offer the beginnings of a historically informed answer to a basic problem: Why would Buddhist authors celebrate some foods over others?

Keywords

Religion and food ； history of food in Buddhism ； empirical knowledge in religion ； congee (zhou 粥) ； Foshuo shishi huo wufubao jing

Parallel abstracts

研究中國佛教的學者已非常關注葷辛等禁食的食品，但是卻很少留心被推崇的食物。雖然戒禁對於區別群體身份的作用很重要，但是不應忽視對諸如粥等特定食物的推崇。在佛教的著述中，「粥」這一字眼已被納入中國佛教僧團的臨齋儀軌之中，並且與養生或果報有關。此類宣稱也很重要，因為它們為實踐提供規範依據。在時間上與地理上遠離的巴利文經典Yagu Sutta(粥經）和日本僧人無著道忠（1653-1744)的《襌林象器箋》都認同「粥」對佛教徒而言是有特殊意義的食物。然而，這種食物最著名的形式並沒有保持不變。紀念佛陀覺醒的粥的成分在經大乘教義的修正和跨文化的重新詮釋之後發生變化，從乳粥變為用菌類和豆類做的粥。透過分析十世紀的藏外類書《釋氏六帖》列舉的内容，同時參照《佛說食施獲五福報經》，本文試圖對一個基本問題率先提供歷史性解答：為何佛教著述家對某些食物特別推崇？