f its sacred teacher,
hastening to destruction. The eightfold heavenly spirits, on every side
filled space: cast down at heart and grieving, they scattered flowers as
offerings. Only Mara-raga rejoiced, and struck up sounds of music in his
exultation. Whilst Gambudvipa shorn of its glory, seemed to grieve as
when the mountain tops fall down to earth, or like the great elephant
robbed of its tusks, or like the ox-king spoiled of his horns; or heaven
without the sun and moon, or as the lily beaten by the hail; thus was
the world bereaved when Buddha died!

Praising Nirvana

At this time there was a Devaputra, riding on his thousand white-swan
palace in the midst of space, who beheld the Parinirvana of Buddha. This
one, for the universal benefit of the Deva assembly, sounded forth at
large these verses on impermanence:--

"Impermanency is the nature of all things, quickly born, they quickly
die. With birth there comes the rush of sorrows, only in Nirvana is
there joy. The accumulated fuel heaped up by the power of karman, this
the fire of wisdom alone can consume. Though the fame of our deeds reach
up to heaven as smoke, yet in time the rains which descend will
extinguish all, as the fire that rages at the kalpa's end is put out by
the judgment of water."

Again there was a Brahma-Rishi-deva, like a most exalted Rishi, dwelling
in heaven, possessed of superior happiness, with no taint in his bliss,
who thus sighed forth his praises of Tathagata's Nirvana, with his mind
fixed in abstraction as he spoke:

"Looking through all the conditions of life, from first to last nought
is free from destruction. But the incomparable seer dwelling in the
world, thoroughly acquainted with the highest truth, whose wisdom grasps
that which is beyond the world's ken, he it is who can save the
worldly-dwellers. He it is who can provide lasting escape from the
destructive power of impermanence. But, alas! through the wide world,
all that lives is sunk in unbelief."

At this time Anuruddha, "not stopped" by the world, "not stopped" from
being delivered, the stream of birth and death forever "stopped," sighed
forth the praises of Tathagata's Nirvana:--

"All living things completely blind and dark! the mass of deeds all
perishing, even as the fleeting cloud-pile! Quickly arising and as
quickly perishing! the wise man holds not to such a refuge, for the
diamond mace of inconstancy can overturn the mountain of the Rishi
hermit. How despic