I felt myself, however, so wonderfully animated and strengthened by the sight that I no longer thought of rest.
“Even if the Master,” I said to Medini, “were to precede us to yonder summit in order to pass from that lofty station to the highest of the regions above, I would yet follow and reach him.”
And, full of courage, I walked on. We had not, however, been half an hour on the way when suddenly the undergrowth ceased, and cultivated land lay before us. It was already quite dark and the full moon rose large and glowing above the wood which lay opposite when we at last reached Kusinara.
It was really not much more than a village of the Mallas with walls and houses of stamped clay and wickerwork. My first impression was that a devastating sickness must have depopulated the little township. At the doors of the houses sat several old and sick people who wailed loudly.
We asked them what had happened.
“Ah!” they exclaimed, wringing their hands. “Soon, all too soon, the Master dies. This very hour, the light of the world will be extinguished. The Mallas have gone to the Sala grove to see and worship the Sacred One. For, shortly before sunset, Ananda came into out town and betook himself to the market where the Mallas were debating a public matter, and said: ‘This very day, before the hour of midnight, O Mallas, the Master will enter Nirvana. See that ye do not later have to reproach yourselves, saying: “In our town, a Buddha died, and we did not take advantage of the opportunity to visit the Perfect One in his last hours.” ’ Upon which all of the Mallas with their wives and children went out moaning and lamenting to the Sala grove. We, however, are too old and weak; we are obliged to remain behind here, and cannot worship the Master in his last hours.”
We immediately had the way from the town to the Sala grove pointed out to us, but, finding it already filled with crowds of returning Mallas, we preferred to hurry across the fields, towards a corner of the little wood.
As we reached it we saw a monk leaning against the trunk of a tree and weeping. Deeply affected, I stopped, and at that instant he raised his face towards heaven. The full moonlight fell upon the pain-filled lineaments, and I recognised Ananda.
“Then I have arrived too late—ah me!” I said to myself, and I felt my strength leaving me.
Just then, however, I heard a rustling in the bush, and saw a gigantic monk step forward and lay his hand upon Ananda’s shoulder.
“Brother Ananda, the Master calls for thee.”
So I was really, then, to see the Buddha in his last moments, after all! At once my strength returned and rendered me capable of following.
That instant Angulimala observed and recognised us. Reading his troubled glance aright, I said—
“Have no fear, brother, that we shall disturb the last moments of the Perfect One by loud weeping and female cries. We have taken no rest by the way from Vesali, here, in order that we might see the Master once again. Do not refuse us admission to him; we will be strong.”
On which he signed to us to follow them.
We did not have far to go.
In a little glade of the forest, there were perhaps two hundred monks collected, who stood around in a semicircle. In their midst rose two Sala trees—one splendid mass of white blossoms—and, beneath them, on a bed of yellow cloaks spread out between the two trunks, rested the Perfect One, his head supported on his right arm. And the blossoms rained softly down upon him.
Behind him, I saw in spirit the pinnacles of the Himavat rise, clad in their eternal snows and now veiled in the darkness of night, and I seemed to catch again the dreamlike glimpse I had just enjoyed, and to which I owed it that I now stood here, in the presence of the Perfect One. And the unearthly glow which had come to me with such a greeting across the distances flashed towards me again, in spiritual glorification, from His face. He also, the Master, appeared, even as though those floating cloudlike peaks, not to belong to this earth at all; and yet he had, like them, climbed up from the same earth-level, which bears us all, to those immeasurable spiritual heights whence he was about to disappear from the sight of gods and men.
He spoke first of all to Ananda, who now stood before him.
“I know well, Ananda, that thou wert weeping in lonely grief, and that thy thought was: ‘I am not yet free from sin; I have not yet reached the goal, and my Master is about to enter into Nirvana—he who pitied me.’ But put such thoughts from thee, Ananda—neither complain, nor lament. Have I not told thee already, Ananda?—from all that one holds dear, one must part. How were it possible, Ananda, that it should be otherwise, that that which comes into existence should not pass out of it—that what is joined together should not be sundered—what is composed not be decomposed? But thou, Ananda, hast long honoured the Perfect One, in love and in kindness, with thy whole heart, gladly and without guile. Thou hast done well. Strive earnestly, and thou wilt soon be free from carnal desires, from selfishness, and from delusion.”
As if to show that he was no longer allowing grief to overcome him, Ananda, commanding his voice by sheer force of will, now asked what the disciples were to do with the Master’s mortal remains.
“Let that in no way trouble thee,” answered the Buddha. “There are wise and pious disciples among the nobles, among the Brahmans, among the citizen heads of families—they will pay the last honours to the mortal remains of the Perfect One. But thou hast more important things to do. Think of the immortal, not of the mortal; speed forward, look not back.”
And as he
