MN21 Were catskin bags made of cats?

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Recently we were studying MN21 The Similie of the Saw and the oddity of the ‘catskin’ bag jumped out at me. I thought that I should be able to find some information about what these bags were, what they were used for, why cats? Cats are a little small for a bag. Is it like a possum skin cloak?

Other than result from Final Fantasy, my search skills only resulted in links back to MN21 with no satisfying answers. Bhante Bodhi and Bhante @Sujato have no notes on these bags.

The commentaries just say that they were made of very soft, catskin. So soft that it was ‘like silk-cotton or kapok-cotton’ (!). Why and how?! Possum skin is probably a little coarser than catskin and I wouldn’t say that it crackles, though it may rustle. I can’t think of an animal hide that is as soft as kapok, especially the skin vs the fur.

Additionally, why would you hit a catskin bag with a stick or a rock? I won’t link to articles on skinning and curing animal skins :sob: but it doesn’t seem to be done by pummelling.

Further research around cats in the suttas, and other ancient Indian texts, show that they were domestic animals used to keep mice and snakes at bay and protect grain stores. There is no evidence which I could find of eating cats. Larger animals were generally used for their hides and the meat then eaten (or vice versa).

One of the people in our sutta discussion also questioned as to why the catskin bag is placed at the end of a list of expansive things.

  1. everyone on the world
  2. heart like the earth
  3. heart like space
  4. heart like the river Ganges
  5. a catskin bag (how’d that get here?)

彼猫皮囊 catskin bags also appear in the Chinese parallel MA193. The only other place which has ’ biḷārabhastā’ in the suttas is Thag19.1

This is really not that important, except for those who are members of ‘Team Cat’.

Any thoughts on this minor mystery greatly appreciated. Curious kitties would like to know!

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Kind regards,
a lifetime member of ‘team dog’

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I guess I assumed this was a kind of suede?

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I think I rather assumed something like this—this is the first time I come across a wikipedia article that exists only in German language. :astonished_face:

While there is no special mention of India, it is said that cats are found across all continents except the most northern parts. Catskin used to be a cheap kind of fur, as there were always many cats available since they were used to decimate mice etc.

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Am I correct in understanding that this is about fur, rather than leather? I had imagined cat leather. Bhastā seems to be leather. The whole thing about hitting it with a stick or a stone doesn’t make sense to me if it was fur. The simile would surely be closer to it being warm and soft, if it was ‘the best of furs’.

Black antelope hide, seems far more common in the leather/hide department, in this part of the world. It would be somewhat more vast than a pussycat, also.

Maybe it was cat leather, but not a bag :person_shrugging:

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I’ve never tanned an animal hide but I have a rough idea of how it’s done. The goal is to get it soft and pliable by scraping and removing the rough remnants, soaking them in various softening baths and then lots of rubbing with oils.

I think there were lots of big cats like Bengal tigers in ancient India, so the sutta may have been referring to that kind of cat rather than the kitty cat we think of.

When I read the sutta, the context of making a catbag rustle with a stick or stone seems to be a simile of how one should train meditating with metta so that when someone comes along with a stick or stone to hit or provoke you into rustling and crackling (making a fuss) in response to their abuse, you can remain soft and quiet because of all of the metta oil rubbing you’ve done. Eventually they will grow weary and stop the abuse.

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This made sense so I did some digging. Indeed, Tiger and such bigs cats’ furs / skin seems to be a prestigious luxury, the size also would explain the expansiveness.

The same feeling for the power of leather possibly explains the use as a seat of various kinds of skins, such as those of the tiger and antelope, by many kinds of ascetics, and in the old ritual the wife with her husband sat on the hide of a bull to promote the fertility of their union.

For some contemporary illegal big-cat traffic for fur skin etc.

This also makes great sense given the context.

This was an interesting thread for both the simile and the knowledge on catskin items. :slight_smile:

Venerable, no- :weary_cat:

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So first of all I’m going to assume the question is not about werecats, which would be a whole other thing.

With a brief search what I’ve found is this.

There’s an ancient Indian zoological text that’s the go-to for animals and such. What it says about biḷāra (biḍāra) might shock a cat lover, so only click this link if you are of stout heart.

It says cats “always do mean things”, which is a terrible thing to say and definitely not true.

It seems the specified identified is the “leopard cat”, a small cat, usually wild but sometimes domesticated. Wikipedia says their skin is still valued today.

Apparently the Swiss use domestic catskin for rheumatism (?!)

I can’t find any mention of biḍārabhastā in Sanskrit texts, except in the Mahāvastu, where it would obviously be derived from the Sutta mention. So it seems the Suttas are the only source for the biḷārabhastā.

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When a cat skin is removed from a dead cat, its messy with fluids, dust, sand, sticky, shinked. If you hit with stick, skin shinks. But, once its stretched, dried and rubbed to remove the mess, it can be turned into soft beautiful products. If you hit the dried and rubbed skin, it no longer revert backs to old state of being messy, easy to shrink.

The comparison of cat skin or any animal skin used to illustrate how the practice of loving kindness feels like, while practising loving kindness mind should not be like a shinked cat skin. The practice of loving kindness is same as the process of stretching an animal (cat) skin, so that there not a single small shrink. Once the process of stretching skin for long time and drying completes, then its possible to use that skin for bags like cat skin hand bag. This is how loving kindness should practiced, with no shrink in mind.

With this understanding read MN21 simily again

Suppose there was a catskin bag that was rubbed, well-rubbed, very well-rubbed, soft, silky, rid of rustling and crackling.Then a person comes along carrying a stick or a stone,and says,‘I shall make this soft catskin bag rustle and crackle with this stick or stone.’

What do you think, mendicants?Could that person make that soft catskin bag rustle and crackle with that stick or stone?"

"No, sir.Why is that?Because that catskin bag is rubbed, well-rubbed, very well-rubbed, soft, silky, rid of rustling and crackling.It’s not easy to make it rustle or crackle with a stick or stone.That person will eventually get weary and frustrated. "

"In the same way, there are these five ways in which others might criticize you.Their speech may be timely or untimely,true or false,gentle or harsh,beneficial or harmful,from a heart of love or from secret hate.When others criticize you, they may do so in any of these ways.If that happens, you should train like this:‘Our minds will not degenerate. We will blurt out no bad words. We will remain full of sympathy, with a heart of love and no secret hate.We will meditate spreading a heart of love to that individual. And with them as a basis, we will meditate spreading a heart like a catskin bag to everyone in the world—abundant, expansive, limitless, free of enmity and ill will.’That’s how you should trai n.

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Is that actually cat? My question was about skinning cats specifically. As it didn’t seem like the skin would make much of a bag, due to their size.

I’m fine with the actual simile.

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How curious!

When I search for the Chinese term 猫皮 in CBETA, it occurs in a couple lists of skins in the Dharmaguptaka and Sarvastivada Vinayas that list it last after other big cats: lion skin, tiger skin, leopard (or panther) skin, otter skin, and cat skin. The Dharmaguptaka calls it “wild cat” skin, suggesting maybe it was not house cat skin but other small wildcats.

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A few things I’d point out:

  • One of the distinguishing characteristics of carnivora (including cats and dogs) is that their skin is “loose” or “sliding”. When they fight among themselves (such as for play) this enables them to receive no harm from attacks that would draw blood from their prey. It’s also how kittens can be safely lifted by the scruff of their neck. This is a remarkable quality of cat skin you might want to use for a metaphor.
  • Rawhide is made pliable by ‘working’ it, which can be done by a wide variety of means, including rubbing, beating, or even chewing. I think the most mechanically efficient method is to pull it over a small-diameter firmly fixed pole, but people can do inefficient things, especially for the sake of a metaphor.
  • Cats are semi-domesticated. Before very recently, we did not control their reproduction, and no matter how prized your mouser companion might be, the majority of cats would die each year due to over-reproduction as waste or even nuisance animals.
  • At least recently, cat hunting and skinning, including for the production of bags and larger items like blankets, was practiced in Switzerland (not sure if they ever banned it). It’s definitely real and possible.
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