31.
1. Now at that time the Bhikkhus did not use tooth-sticks 5, and their mouths got a bad odour.
1--the mouth becomes bad-smelling--the passages by which the flavours of the food pass are not pure--bile and phlegm get into 2 the food--and the food does not taste well 3 to him (who does not use them). These are the five disadvantages, O Bhikkhus, in not using tooth-sticks.'
There are five advantages, O Bhikkhus, (&c., the converse of the last)
'I allow you, O Bhikkhus, tooth-sticks.'
2. Now at that time the Khabbaggiya Bhikkhus used long tooth-sticks; and even struck the Sâmaneras with them.
They told this matter to the Blessed One.
'You are not, O Bhikkhus, to use long tooth-sticks.
Footnotes
146:5 Danta-kattham, not 'tooth-brushes,' as Childers translates. 147:1 This has of course nothing to do with keeping the teeth white and beautiful; that was not the purpose which the tooth-sticks were designed to effect. There seems to have been really some idea that the use of them was good for the eye-sight. So Buddhaghosa says here, akakkhussan ti kakkhûnam hitam ma hoti, parihânim ganeti, quite in accordance with the Sanskrit kakshushya. The words recur below, VI, 2, 2, in the same sense.
147:2 Pariyonandhanti. Literally, 'envelope,' 'cover.'
147:3 Na kkhâdeti. This is a different word from khâdeti, 'to cover.' It is khad No. 2 in Böhtlingk-Roth.
