Bu Sk 5656. Discarding waste water with rice
Pāli / Sanskrit:Sasitthaka
Save your scripture progress
Create a free account to save scriptures, track progress, and continue your daily learning path.
Theravāda Collection on Monastic Law The Great Analysis
The chapter on training The subchapter on slurping 56. Discarding waste water with rice
Origin story
At one time when the Buddha was staying in the Bhagga country at Susumāragira in the Bhesakaḷā Grove, the monks in the Kokanada stilt house were discarding their bowl-washing water containing rice in inhabited areas. People complained and criticized them, “How can the Sakyan monastics discard their bowl-washing water containing rice in inhabited areas? They’re just like householders who indulge in worldly pleasures!”
The monks heard the complaints of those people, and the monks of few desires complained and criticized those monks, “How can those monks do this?” … “Is it true, monks, that they do this?”
“It’s true, sir.”
The Buddha rebuked them … “How can those foolish men do this? This will affect people’s confidence …” … “And, monks, this training rule should be recited like this:
Final ruling
‘“I will not discard bowl-washing water containing rice in inhabited areas,” this is how you should train.’”
One should not discard bowl-washing water containing rice in an inhabited area. If a monk, out of disrespect, discards bowl-washing water containing rice in an inhabited area, he commits an offense of wrong conduct.
Non-offenses
There is no offense: if it is unintentional; if he is not mindful; if he does not know; if he is sick; if he discards it after removing the rice, after breaking it up, into a container, or after taking it outside; if there is an emergency; if he is insane; if he is the first offender.
The sixth training rule is finished.
The “…” is an abbreviation carried over from the Pāli original itself, called peyyāla. The early canon was memorized and recited, so passages repeated verbatim from a preceding discourse were commonly contracted to an elision mark rather than written out in full. Venerable Thích Minh Châu's translation preserves this convention. Some texts therefore look short — but that is the canonical form, not missing content or a truncated translation. The elided passages can be read in full in the preceding discourses of the same chapter.
Translations belong to the translator/source credited above. The bilingual compilation, presentation, and AI translations compiled by Inti are © Inti Foundation. Please attribute when quoting; do not bulk-copy or use commercially without permission.