BUDDHIST MONASTIC CODE I

The Food Chapter Chapter 8.4bhikkhu and formally offered after noon, one may drink it without food until thefollowing dawnrise. The allowance for mango juice drink covers juice made eitherfrom ripe or from unripe mangoes. To make unripe mango juice, it recommends thatthe mango be cut or broken into small pieces, placed in water, heated in sunlight,and then strained, adding honey, sugar, and/or camphor as desired. Juice madefrom Bassia pierrei must be diluted with water, as the undiluted juice of this fruit istoo thick.The five tonics are discussed in detail under NP 23.Medicines. According to the Mahāvagga (VI.3.1-8), any items in the six followingcategories that, by themselves, are not used as staple or non-staple food aremedicines: roots, astringent decoctions, leaves, fruits, resins, and salts. Forexample, under fruits: Oranges and apples are not medicines, but pepper, nutmeg,and cardamom are. Most modern medicines would fit under the category of salts.Using the Great Standards, we can say that any edible that is used as a medicinebut does not fit under the categories of staple or non-staple food, juice drinks, orthe five tonics, would fit here. (For a full discussion of medicines, see BMC2,Chapter 5.)Keeping and consuming. Each of the four basic classes of edibles — food, juicedrinks, the five tonics, and medicines — has its "life span," the period during whichit may be kept and consumed. Food may be kept and consumed until noon of theday it is received; juice drinks, until dawnrise of the following day; the five tonics,until dawnrise of the seventh day after they are received; and medicines, for theremainder of one's life.Mixed foods. Edibles made from mixed ingredients that have different life spans —e.g., salted beef, honeyed cough syrup, sugared orange juice — have the same lifespan as the ingredient with the shortest life span. Thus salted beef is treated asbeef, honeyed cough syrup as honey, and sugared orange juice as orange juice(Mv.VI.40.3). According to the Commentary, mixing here means thoroughintermingling. Thus, it says, if fruit juice has a whole, unhusked coconut floating in it,the coconut may be removed, and the juice is all right to drink until the followingdawnrise. If butter is placed on top of rice porridge, the part of the butter that hasn'tmelted into the rice may be kept and eaten for seven days. If items with different lifespans are all presented at the same time, they maintain their separate life spans aslong as they don't interpenetrate one another. Not all Communities, however, followthe Commentary on this point.Mv.VI.40.3, the passage underlying these rulings, can be translated as follows(replacing the formal terms for categories of food with the primary examples of eachcategory):"Juice-mixed-with-food, when received that day, is allowable during the right timeand not allowable at the wrong time. A tonic-mixed-with-food, when received thatday, is allowable during the right time and not allowable at the wrong time.Medicine-mixed-with-food, when received that day, is allowable during the righttime and not allowable at the wrong time. A tonic-mixed-with-juice, when received305