most backward of all these five hundred brethren has
become converted and is no longer liable to be born in a state of
suffering and is assured of final salvation."

"Behold, I exhort you saying, The elements of being are transitory[382].
Strive earnestly. These were the last words of the Tathagata." Then he
passed through a series of trances (no less than twenty stages are
enumerated) and expired.

An earthquake and thunder, as one might have predicted, occurred at the
moment of his death but comparatively little stress is laid on these
prodigies. Anuruddha seems to have taken the lead among the brethren and
bade Ananda announce the death to the Mallas. They heard it with cries
of grief: "Too soon has the Blessed One passed away. Too soon has the
light gone out of the world."

No less than six days were passed in preparation for the obsequies[383].
On the seventh they decided to carry the body to the south of the city
and there burn it. But when they endeavoured to lift it, they found it
immoveable. Anuruddha explained that spirits who were watching the
ceremony wished it to be carried not outside the city but through it.
When this was done the corpse moved easily and the heaven rained
flowers. The meaning of this legend is that the Mallas considered a
corpse would have defiled the city and therefore proposed to carry it
outside. By letting it pass through the city they showed that it was not
the ordinary relics of impure humanity.

Again, when they tried to light the funeral pile it would not catch
fire. Anuruddha explained that this delay also was due to the
intervention of spirits who wished that Mahakassapa, the same whom the
Buddha had converted at Uruvela and then on his way to pay his last
respects, should arrive before the cremation. When he came attended by
five hundred monks the pile caught fire of itself and the body was
consumed completely, leaving only the bones. Streams of rain
extinguished the flames and the Mallas took the bones to their council
hall. There they set round them a hedge of spears and a fence of bows
and honoured them with dance and song and offerings of garlands and
perfumes.

Whatever may be thought of this story, the veneration of the Buddha's
relics, which is attested by the Piprava vase, is a proof that we have
to do with a man rather than a legend. The relics may all be false, but
the fact that they were venerated some 250 years after his death shows
that the people of India t