WHERE BUDDHA FINALLY RENOUNCED THE WORLD, AND WHERE HE DIED.
East from here four yojanas, there is the place where the
heir-apparent sent back Chaṇḍaka, with his white horse;[1] and there
also a tope was erected.
Four yojanas to the east from this, (the travellers) came to the
Charcoal tope,[2] where there is also a monastery.
Going on twelve yojanas, still to the east, they came to the city of
Kuśanagara,[3] on the north of which, between two trees,[4] on the
bank of the Nairañjanâ[5] river, is the place where the World-honoured
one, with his head to the north, attained to pari-nirvâṇa (and
died). There also are the places where Subhadra,[6] the last (of his
converts), attained to Wisdom (and became an Arhat); where in his
coffin of gold they made offerings to the World-honoured one for seven
days,[7] where the Vajrapâṇi laid aside his golden club,[8] and where
the eight kings divided the relics (of the burnt body)[9]:—at all
these places were built topes and monasteries, all of which are now
existing.
[Illustration: VII. BUDDHA’S DYING INSTRUCTIONS.]
[Illustration: VIII. BUDDHA’S DEATH.]
[Illustration: IX. DIVISION OF BUDDHA’S RELICS.]
In the city the inhabitants are few and far between, comprising only
the families belonging to the (different) societies of monks.
Going from this to the south-east for twelve yojanas, they came to the
place where the Lichchhavis[10] wished to follow Buddha to (the place
of) his pari-nirvâṇa, and where, when he would not listen to them and
they kept cleaving to him, unwilling to go away, he made to appear a
large and deep ditch which they could not cross over, and gave them
his alms-bowl, as a pledge of his regard, (thus) sending them back to
their families. There a stone pillar was erected with an account of
this event engraved upon it.
NOTES
[1] This was on the night when Śâkyamuni finally left his palace
and family to fulfil the course to which he felt that he was called.
Chaṇḍaka, in Pâli Channa, was the prince’s charioteer, and in sympathy
with him. So also was the white horse Kanthaka (Kanthakanam Aśvarâja),
which neighed his delight till the devas heard him. See M. B., pp.
158–161, and Davids’ Manual, pp. 32, 33. According to ‘Buddhist Birth
Stories,’ p. 87, the noble horse never returned to the city, but died
of grief at being left by his master, to be reborn immediately in the
Trayastriṃśas heaven as the deva Kanthaka!
[2] Beal and Giles call this the ‘Ashes’ tope. I also would have
preferred to call it so; but the Chinese character is 炭, not 灰.
Rémusat has ‘la tour des charbons.’ It was over the place of Buddha’s
cremation.
[3] In Pâli Kusinârâ. It got its name from the Kuśa grass (the poa
cynosuroides); and its ruins are still extant, near Kusiah, 180 N.W.
from Patna; ‘about,’ says Davids, ‘120 miles N.N.E. of Benâres, and 80
miles due east of Kapilavastu.’
[4] The Śâla tree, the Shorea robusta, which yields the famous teak
wood.
[5] Confounded, according to Eitel, even by Hsüan-chwang, with the
Hiraṇyavatî, which flows past the city on the south.
[6] A Brahmân of Benâres, said to have been 120 years old, who came to
learn from Buddha the very night he died. Ânanda would have repulsed
him; but Buddha ordered him to be introduced; and then putting aside
the ingenious but unimportant question which he propounded, preached
to him the Law. The Brahmân was converted and attained at once to
Arhatship. Eitel says that he attained to nirvâṇa a few moments before
Śâkyamuni; but see the full account of him and his conversion in
‘Buddhist Suttas,’ p. 103–110.
[7] Thus treating the dead Buddha as if he had been a Chakravartti
king. Hardy’s M. B., p. 347, says:—‘For the place of cremation, the
princes (of Kusinârâ) offered their own coronation-hall, which was
decorated with the utmost magnificence, and the body was deposited in
a golden sarcophagus.’ See the account of a cremation which Fâ-hien
witnessed in Ceylon, chap. xxxix.
[8] The name Vajrapâṇi is explained as ‘he who holds in his hand the
diamond club (or pestle = sceptre),’ which is one of the many names of
Indra or Śakra. He therefore, that great protector of Buddhism, would
seem to be intended here; but the difficulty with me is that neither
in Hardy nor Rockhill, nor any other writer, have I met with any
manifestation of himself made by Indra on this occasion. The princes
of Kuśanagara were called mallas, ‘strong or mighty heroes;’ so also
were those of Pâvâ and Vaiśâlî; and a question arises whether
the language may not refer to some story which Fâ-hien had
heard,—something which they did on this great occasion. Vajrapâṇi is
also explained as meaning ‘the diamond mighty hero;’ but the epithet
of ‘diamond’ is not so applicable to them as to Indra. The clause may
hereafter obtain more elucidation.
[9] Of Kuśanagara, Pâvâ, Vaiśâlî, and other kingdoms. Kings, princes,
brahmâns,—each wanted the whole relic; but they agreed to an
eightfold division at the suggestion of the brahmân Droṇa.
[10] These ‘strong heroes’ were the chiefs of Vaiśâlî, a kingdom and
city, with an oligarchical constitution. They embraced Buddhism early,
and were noted for their peculiar attachment to Buddha. The second
synod was held at Vaiśâlî, as related in the next chapter. The ruins
of the city still exist at Bassahar, north of Patna, the same, I
suppose, as Besarh, twenty miles north of Hajipûr. See Beal’s Revised
Version, p. lii.