Cunda

Who is Cunda?

In Buddhism in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta of the Pali canon, Kunda or Cunda was a blacksmith who gave the last meal as an offering to Buddha. Falling violently ill, The Buddha instructed his attendant Ānanda to convince Cunda that the meal eaten at his place had nothing to do with his passing and that his meal would be a source of the greatest merit as it provided the last meal for a Buddha. Buddha recovered from his illness before he attained parinirvana.

The precise contents of the Buddha's final meal are not clear, due to variant scriptural traditions and ambiguity over the translation of certain significant terms; the Theravada tradition generally believes that the Buddha was offered some kind of pork, while the Mahayana tradition believes that the Buddha consumed some sort of truffle or other mushroom. These may reflect the different traditional views on Buddhist vegetarianism and the precepts for monks and nuns.