e bed. But
Ananda, we are told, went into the Vihara, which was apparently also in
the grove, and stood leaning against the lintel weeping at the thought
that he was to lose so kind a master. The Buddha sent for him and said,
"Do not weep. Have I not told you before that it is the very nature of
things most near and dear to us that we must part from them, leave them,
sever ourselves from them? All that is born, brought into being and put
together carries within itself the necessity of dissolution. How then is
it possible that such a being should not be dissolved? No such condition
is possible. For a long time, Ananda, you have been very near me by
words of love, kind and good, that never varies and is beyond all
measure. You have done well, Ananda. Be earnest in effort and you too
shall soon be free from the great evils--from sensuality, from
individuality, from delusion and from ignorance."

The Indians have a strong feeling that persons of distinction should die
in a suitable place[379], and now comes a passage in which Ananda begs
the Buddha not to die "in this little wattle and daub town in the midst
of the jungle" but rather in some great city. The Buddha told him that
Kusinara had once been the capital of King Mahasudassana and a scene of
great splendour in former ages. This narrative is repeated in an
amplified form in the Sutta and Jataka[380] called Mahasudassana, in
which the Buddha is said to have been that king in a previous birth.

Kusinara was at that time one of the capitals of the Mallas, who were an
aristocratic republic like the Sakyas and Vajjians. At the Buddha's
command Ananda went to the Council hall and summoned the people. "Give
no occasion to reproach yourself hereafter saying, The Tathagata died in
our own village and we neglected to visit him in his last hours." So the
Mallas came and Ananda presented them by families to the dying Buddha as
he lay between the flowering trees, saying "Lord, a Malla of such and
such a name with his children, his wives, his retinue and his friends
humbly bows down at the feet of the Blessed One."

A monk called Subhadda, who was not a believer, also came and Ananda
tried to turn him away but the Buddha overhearing said "Do not keep out
Subhadda. Whatever he may ask of me he will ask from a desire for
knowledge and not to annoy me and he will quickly understand my
replies." He was the last disciple whom the Buddha converted, and he
straightway became an Arhat.