The friendship between Sakyamuni and Ananda was very close and
tender; and it is impossible to read much of what the dying Buddha said
to him and of him, as related in the Mahapari-nirvana Sutra, without
being moved almost to tears. Ananda is to reappear on earth as Buddha in
another Kalpa.]

[Footnote 3: On his attaining to nirvana, Sakyamuni became the Buddha,
and had no longer to mourn his being within the circle of
transmigration, and could rejoice in an absolute freedom from passion,
and a perfect purity. Still he continued to live on for forty-five
years, till he attained to pari-nirvana, and had done with all the life
of sense and society, and had no more exercise of thought. He died; but
whether he absolutely and entirely ceased to be, in any sense of the
word being, it would be difficult to say. Probably he himself would not
and could not have spoken definitely on the point. So far as our use of
language is concerned, apart from any assured faith in and hope of
immortality, his pari-nirvana was his death.]

[Footnote 4: Jambudvipa is one of the four great continents of the
universe, representing the inhabited world as fancied by the Buddhists,
and so-called because it resembles in shape the leaves of the jambu
tree.]

[Footnote 5: Compare the narrative in Luke's Gospel, xxi. 1-4.]

[Footnote 6: This story of Hwuy-king's death differs from the account
given in chapter xiv.--EDITOR.]

CHAPTER XIII

~Festival of Buddha's Skull-bone~

Going west for sixteen yojanas, [1] he came to the city He-lo [2] in the
borders of the country of Nagara, where there is the flat-bone of
Buddha's skull, deposited in a vihara [3] adorned all over with
gold-leaf and the seven sacred substances. The king of the country,
revering and honoring the bone, and anxious lest it should be stolen
away, has selected eight individuals, representing the great families in
the kingdom, and committed to each a seal, with which he should seal its
shrine and guard the relic. At early dawn these eight men come, and
after each has inspected his seal, they open the door. This done, they
wash their hands with scented water and bring out the bone, which they
place outside the vihara, on a lofty platform, where it is supported on
a round pedestal of the seven precious substances, and covered with a
bell of lapis lazuli, both adorned with rows of pearls. Its color is of
a yellowish white, and it forms an imperfect circle twelve inches round,
c