Intangible Culture 무형문화연구 ISSN:2799-3868(Print)

Among Buddhist offerings, the provide food and drink in particular must have been an important part since the time of Shakyamuni. It is the most necessary for maintaining the practitioner's body for correct enlightenment. The concept of Āhāra-dharma related to provide food and drink is a concept that still feels somewhat unfamiliar to this day. However, in Buddhist scriptures, Āhāra-dharma is a concept that is dealt with frequently. Begging for food of early Buddhist practitioners, the four seeds of holiness on which this begging for food is based, Buddhist disciples who do not follow the four uncleanness foods because they consider practicing purity to be a precept, the five restrains related to food in the twelve kinds of practices of intensified discipline, practitioners of the four worldly kinds of food and the five supramundane kinds of food, etc. It can be said to be the Āhāra-dharma of early Buddhism, including the precepts and rules related to food offerings, as well as the practitioner's attitude toward food. If these early Buddhist Āhāra-dharma focused on the precepts and mindset regarding food, the Āhāra-dharma in Mahayana Buddhism were developed into dharmic diet and developed into the practice of contemplating phenomena for the Dharma on food. For practitioners of esoteric Buddhism who focus on carry out or perform, the restrained Āhāra-dharma was further strengthened and applied, in particular, the offering of food to the three divisions, that is, Buddha-groups, a part of lotus flower, and vajra group, based on esoteric Buddhist scriptures, was different from the existing Āhāra-dharma. In the early Mahayana Buddhist scriptures, offerings of flowers, six dharma offerings, etc. are rituals of offering food to the three divisions through mandala rules of behavior, and began to appear for the first time in early esoteric scriptures such as Susiddhi-tantra and its offering method, and in middle period esoteric scriptures, from Mahāvairocana-sūtra, offerings began to be made to the three to five divisions. This kind of Āhāra-dharma for Buddhism seems to require additional research in the future under the proposition of ‘The Systematic of Buddhist Āhāra-dharma’.