In the parable of the son’s flesh, found only in the Saṃyuttanikāya (SN) 12.67 (PTS ed. vol. 2, 97–100) of the Pāli Canon, a husband and wife, in circumstances of extremity, kill their son and eat his flesh to survive. In this paper, I indicate the existence of an alternative version of this parable, in which the son was not killed but died, in the commentaries Papañcasūdanī (vol. 1, 211–213) and the Sāratthappakāsinī (vol. 2, 104–105). The reason why the son’s cause of death differs between the Saṃyuttanikāya and the two commentaries can be understood in two ways: (1) the commentaries simply relate an actual event (bhūta- attha-) of the parable. They narrate using the aorist, whereas, the SN uses seyyathāpi and the optative. (2) There was a taboo against killing children in the Theravāda tradition. The relevance of the second observation becomes clear in the course of this paper.
