The Buddha's Advent and Final Nirvāṇa

Long ago, in a distant kalpa, the Tathāgata practiced the bodhisattva path as the king of a great country. When his parents died, he ceded the kingdom to his younger brother and went forth alone in search of the path. He met a brahmin of the Gautama clan and studied under him, thereby taking the same clan name, and entered deep into the mountains to meditate on the path, begging for food and returning to the country — but the people there no longer recognized him, and called him "Little Gautama." He built a hermitage in a sugarcane grove outside the city. Five hundred great bandits, having plundered the royal treasury, passed by the edge of this grove; the next day their tracks were followed and the bodhisattva was seized in their place. He was impaled on a stake beneath a great tree, his blood flowing onto the ground. His teacher, the elder Gautama, flew to the scene and asked what grave crime could have brought him to this — but the officials shot him with crossbows and killed him regardless. The elder Gautama wept, his tears falling on the coffin; he gathered the blood-soaked earth into two clay balls, carried them back to the hermitage, placed them in two vessels, and said, "If this ascetic was truly sincere, may the heavenly spirits cause this blood to become human." Ten months later, the ball on the left had become a boy and the one on the right a girl, both of the clan Gautama; the boy was named Śākya — the very one who, in this Fortunate Kalpa, at the time of the Buddha Ratnasambhava, was also called Śākyamuni, whose lifespan exceeds five million years (Source: Sūtra of the Buddha's Twelve Journeys). The Buddha, at the site of enlightenment in Magadha, beneath the tree of original auspiciousness, subdued Māra by the power of his virtue and delivered two merchants — it was there that Dīpaṃkara Buddha bestowed on me the prediction: "In a future age, ninety-one kalpas hence, you shall become a buddha, named Śākyamuni, complete with the ten epithets, just as I am now." From that time I accumulated merit and practice without tiring, cultivating the six perfections and the four immeasurables, and my reward has now come to nothing wasted, my great vow brought to fruition (Source: Zhong Ben Qi Sūtra, upper fascicle).

The bodhisattva, having reached his final stage in Tuṣita Heaven, the assembled devas debated into which clan he should be born. A deva named Excellent Seed asked into what lineage the one in his final rebirth should descend, and the answer came: one whose lineage possesses sixty virtues (much of the discussion is omitted here). Only the Śākya clan had long planted such roots of virtue: the people of Kapilavastu lived in harmony, high and low, their country wealthy and content, all thirsting after the one vehicle. King Śuddhodana was benevolent and wise, and his consort, of the Gautama clan, gentle and loyal, guarding body, speech, and mind — she had already been the bodhisattva's mother for five hundred lifetimes. As the queen lay at rest, the bodhisattva, riding a white elephant crowned with the essence of the sun, entered her womb, his body and mind at ease as in deep meditation, and sent word to the king from beneath the Aśoka tree.

Ten auspicious signs then appeared in the Aśoka grove: it grew vast and spacious, earth and stone turned to vajra, jeweled trees stood in rows, aloeswood adorned the grove, garlands filled every space, treasure flowed forth of itself, lotuses bloomed in the pools, devas and nāgas stood in reverence, heavenly maidens paid homage, and all buddhas everywhere shone their light. The queen's body grew light and soft, her touch alone healing the sick. As the ten months drew to a close, thirty-two further signs appeared: fruit ripened out of season, blue lotuses as large as cartwheels sprang from dry ground, withered trees flowered, carriages of the seven treasures arrived, buried treasure welled up of itself, fragrance and flowers spread far and near, five hundred lions and five hundred white elephants gathered at the city gates and palace, a fine fragrant rain fell, and food of a hundred flavors appeared for the hungry (much else is omitted here, largely agreeing with the other biographical sūtras). On the eighth day of the fourth month, as the morning star appeared, the queen strolled to the garden, and beneath a Plakṣa tree — as the three thousand lands shook six times and a constellation fell — the tree bent its branch of itself for the mother to hold; the devas scattered flowers, and the child was born from her right side, one zhang six feet tall, and at once walked seven steps, a lotus springing up beneath each foot. He raised his hand and declared: "In heaven above and on earth below, I alone am the honored one; all three realms are suffering — what is there in them to delight in?" Śakra and Brahmā attended him, the Four Heavenly Kings received him on a golden table, and nāgas bathed him with fragrant water; five hundred maidservants each bore a mighty son that same hour, a mare foaled, and a ewe lambed (the Sūtra of Auspicious Responses names the servant Chandaka and the horse Kaṇṭhaka). Seven days later the mother's life ended, and she was born in Trāyastriṃśa Heaven.

The infant prince needed care, and it was decided that only Mahāprajāpatī, his maternal aunt, being chaste and without a husband, could raise him; the king asked her to nurse the child, and she consented. A brahmin seer of the Snow Mountains, Asita, on seeing the prince, wept, and told the king he rejoiced that so divine a being had been born, and that the earth's trembling the day before was on his account. According to physiognomy, the prince bore the thirty-two marks: a golden body, a fleshy crown-protrusion, hair of a lustrous dark blue-green, a tuft of white hair between the brows, light like the sun from the crown, blue-green eyelashes blinking together above and below, forty teeth white and even, square jaws, a broad, long tongue, a voice that could fill a hall, a lion's chest, a squarely proportioned body, long arms and fingers, full heels resting flat on the ground, webbing between fingers and toes, soft full palms marked with a thousand-spoked wheel, the same on the feet, concealed male organs as a horse's, calves like a deer's, interlocking bones, hair curling to the right with a single hair from each pore, fine soft skin that dust and water could not cling to, and the character "萬" upon the chest (the Sūtra of Auspicious Responses gives the same, save for two). Whoever bears this body becomes, if a householder, a wheel-turning sage king to whom the seven treasures come of themselves, or, if he goes forth, a buddha of his own accord. "It grieves me," Asita said, "that my own years are too far advanced for me to live to see the Buddha's rise — this is why I weep." The king rewarded him generously and told Mahāprajāpatī to give the child the deepest care (Source: Lalitavistara, fascicle 2; also the Śākya Genealogy, fascicle 1).

At seven, the prince rode in a goat-carriage, escorted by the Śākyas, to his writing-teacher, Viśvāmitra. Asked what script he intended to teach, the teacher named the Brāhmī and Kharoṣṭhī scripts; the prince pointed out that sixty-four scripts existed, then named them all — Brāhmī, Kharoṣṭhī, and scripts for protecting the multitude, for swiftness, for nāgas and spirits, for gandharvas, and more (much else is omitted here) — asking which of these the teacher meant to teach him. The teacher, unable to answer, could only praise him, and the prince himself explained the roots and branches of each script to the other children, inspiring in them the resolve for the path. At seventeen, the king sought a consort for him from among several thousand candidates, settling at last on Gopī, daughter of the minor king Daṇḍapāṇi — matchless in beauty, pure as a lotus, and already contested by eight kingdoms. Daṇḍapāṇi, fearing either refusal or the other kingdoms' enmity, proclaimed a contest of skill, and in seven days the prince outmatched every rival: he threw an elephant's carcass clear of the city, mastered eighty thousand arts beyond compare, threw the wrestler Devadatta into the air unharmed, and, when every available bow proved too weak for him, drew his own great-grandfather's ancient bow from its shrine and shot an arrow a hundred li into a drum, the arrow's impact opening a spring that reached all the way to the Cakravāḍa mountains as the three thousand lands shook six times. Gopī became his first consort; he also took Yaśodharā, daughter of the elder Yiṣi, as his second, and Mṛgajā, daughter of a Śākya elder, as his third. Destined to become a flying emperor, he built three palaces for the three seasons with sixty thousand palace women, and his son Rāhula descended from heaven and manifested his own birth in time.

The prince went out through the eastern gate; though the king had ordered the roads cleared of every impurity, the devas conjured an old man — white-haired, toothless, dim-eyed, deaf, bent over his cane. The prince, knowing full well, asked what manner of person this was. "An old man," the charioteer said. The prince said, "Human life flows on like a stream, never to be had twice — and this is true of the whole world, not one person alone," and returned to the palace, grieving. Through the southern gate he later saw a sick man, swollen and wasted, and reflected, "All things are impermanent; wherever there is a body, there is suffering, and I too shall be no different." Through the western gate he saw a dead man, his household weeping, and the charioteer explained that death follows life as winter follows spring; the prince said, "Death is a bitter thing — I see that when a person dies, the form is destroyed and the body transformed, yet the spirit does not perish, and I can no longer bear to keep taking on birth through death, wandering wearily among the five destinies." Later, through the northern gate, he saw a monk, his robes neat, a ritual implement in hand — "one who has cast off worldly desire and wishes to deliver the ten directions," the charioteer explained. The prince said, "Excellent — this is exactly what I long for. If I do not renounce my royal position and go forth from home, this would not be right."

That very night he entered the royal chamber and woke his father, saying the devas had urged him on and he must now go forth. His father, weeping, asked what he wished and when he would return; the prince asked for four things instead — freedom from old age, sickness, death, and separation — which, if granted, would keep him home. The king, admitting no one had ever attained such things, set five hundred strong Śākya youths to guard the gates day and night, while Gopī, suspecting something, would not leave his side. Resolved that the path required a purity unsuited to household life, the prince, then twenty-nine, waited until after midnight on the seventh day of the fourth month, when Gopī woke from five ominous dreams — Sumeru collapsing, the moon falling, a pearl's light dying, her hair falling out, her parasol seized from her — which he gently reassured her all concerned himself alone and had not truly happened. That night he looked on his sleeping musicians and saw their bodies as hollow as the plantain tree, mucus and tears and instruments strewn about; he looked on his own wife and saw beneath her form only skull, organs, and filth in a bag of skin, borrowed and soon to be returned. The devas of the desire realm called down that the time had come; he woke Chandaka to saddle Kaṇṭhaka, as the Four Heavenly Kings and countless spirits gathered in reverence, and a spirit of drowsiness put the whole sleeping city into its deepest sleep. When the gate-locks would not open, four spirits lifted the horse bodily over the palace wall, Śakra leading the way in great light toward the Bodhi tree (Source: Lalitavistara, fascicles 3 and 4).

The next morning, unable to find him, the king followed his tracks to a royal field and saw the prince from a distance, a tree bending its own branches to shade him — and the king, astonished, dismounted without realizing it and bowed. The prince bowed in return, asking why he had troubled to come. The king, unable to let go of his longing, told his ministers: "You all have sons and grandsons to comfort you — I have only this one, and now he lives apart in the mountains. Take five of your own sons and send them to attend him; should he ever return partway, my line will be secured." The prince gave his fine garments to Chandaka to carry back, with word to his father and to Gopī that he would return once he had attained the path, and would not forget this vow. Chandaka wept bitterly on his leave, and the white horse knelt to lick the bodhisattva's feet; the king, seeing the returned garments, wept and fell to the ground, and Gopī, embracing the horse, asked why it had returned alone. Wishing now to become a monk, the bodhisattva went to a place among the mountains and waters; a heavenly king, knowing his intent, descended with a knife, and the bodhisattva shaved his own head and beard — Śakra receiving the fallen hair — leaving only the crown-protrusion, and became a great śramaṇa. At the bank of the Nairañjanā River he lived in quiet solitude, where he met a hunter wearing a monk's robe; asked its name, the hunter answered "kāṣāya," explaining that deer, taking him for a seeker of the path, came near without fear, whereupon he killed them for his own sustenance. The bodhisattva, moved to compassion, asked to exchange his own royal garments for the robe; the hunter warned that a palace-raised body, soft and delicate, might be harmed by so coarse and unclean a garment, but the prince insisted there was no harm in it, and that he would wash it himself. When the devas offered him food thereafter, he declined to accept it from them.

He journeyed on to Magadha, where the people, taking him for a deva, followed him as he sat beneath a tree. King Bimbisāra, going out with his ministers to meet this radiant ascetic, asked his name and origin; on learning he was Siddhārtha, the king bowed at his feet, urging him to reclaim his destiny as a wheel-turning sage emperor rather than abandon himself to the mountain wilds. The prince answered that birth is inevitably followed by death, its suffering fourfold — birth, old age, sickness, and death — inescapable and without end, and that even honor and favor breed only pride and craving; it was to escape this that he had entered the mountains. For six years thereafter he practiced with extreme austerity, eating but a single grain of sesame and rice each day, sitting motionless through every season's storm, never once raising a hand even as people, testing him, thrust grass and twigs into his ears and nose; his body grew gaunt, yet his golden hue only shone the brighter. At the end of the six years, he reflected that to approach the Bodhi tree so wasted would only invite later mockery that he had attained the path through mere starvation, and resolved instead to take nourishing food and restore his body first.

An elder's daughter, having recently married and borne a son, made a rich milk-porridge from a thousand cows milked one into another, intending it as an offering to a tree-spirit. Her maidservant, sweeping beneath the tree, saw the Buddha there without recognizing him and reported a beautiful spirit residing there; but when the daughter went to bring the porridge, it leapt out of the pot of its own accord, until a voice from the sky told her that a great bodhisattva had just risen from his seat, and that her old vow required she feed him first, for he would then attain perfect awakening. She took the porridge to him at the Nairañjanā River, where the bodhisattva, having bathed by his own power and received a heavenly robe from a Tuṣita deva, ate the offering and felt his strength return. Walking on toward the Bodhi tree, he asked a grass-cutter named Sotthiya for soft kuśa grass to sit upon, and the earth shook as the devas conjured eighty thousand lion-thrones beneath bodhi trees at once — each deva seeing the bodhisattva seated alone on his own throne, while those of lesser merit saw only grass, and all beings of the three realms alike beheld him seated beneath the Bodhi tree. He then emitted a great light.

His light overshadowed Māra's palace. Māra, asleep, dreamed thirty-two ominous transformations — his palace darkened, his pools dried, his spirits' heads fell to the ground — and, waking, gathered his troops and his thousand sons, five hundred of whom felt only faith toward the bodhisattva while the other five hundred joined Māra to oppose him. Māra sent his four daughters — Desire-Consort, Delight-in-Others, Fine-Sight, and Compliant-View — to seduce the bodhisattva with every art of charm, but he told them plainly that their hearts, however fine their forms, were leather bags of filth, and would not have them; three of the maidens, unable to bear his rejection, turned into old women of themselves. Māra's own army followed — lions, bears, serpents, monsters bearing mountains and spitting fire — yet the bodhisattva's heart did not so much as tremble, and the demon host could not approach him. He then raised the tuft of white hair between his brows toward the Avīci hell itself, its light momentarily quenching the fires there and letting the condemned recall their own past offenses and take refuge in the Buddha; the light continued on through every heaven, revealing the seven past buddhas seated on jeweled lotuses in each pore, until Māra, seeing his own army now resembling withered wood beside this radiance, withdrew in despair. When he returned once more to contend with the Buddha, the Buddha extended his hand and touched the earth, which shook at once, casting Māra and his whole retinue down in confusion — and having thus subdued Māra, the bodhisattva at once attained perfect awakening (Source: Lalitavistara, fascicles 5 and 6).

With a following now numbering several thousand, he entered Rājagṛha, the crowds taking him for a deva as they followed after him. King Bimbisāra, seeing the commotion from his tower, was told by one minister that this stray Śākya youth might be plotting against some kingdom and should be executed — but the king recognized him at once as the very son destined for the throne, and declared that should he become a buddha, the king wished to be his very first disciple. Bimbisāra went out to greet him, bowed at his feet, offered provisions, and asked only to be the first delivered once the Buddha attained the unsurpassed path. When Ārāḍa Kālāma's own disciples saw the World-Honored One approaching their teacher's gate from afar and remarked he must surely wish to become a disciple, Ārāḍa answered instead with a verse:

"I observe this man who comes from afar — every one of his marks is without flaw;
he is himself lord of the world, and in the end will never serve another as his master."

(Source: Sūtra of Monks Deep and Shallow in Learning; also the Sūtra on the Fundamentals of Practice, latter fascicle).

Ānanda asked about funeral rites. The Buddha said his own should follow that of a wheel-turning sage king: the body bathed in fragrant water, wrapped in cotton, then bound in five hundred lengths of white cloth, placed in a golden coffin filled with sesame oil, itself set within an iron casing and an outer casing of sandalwood, then heaped with fragrant firewood and cremated; once the fire died, the relics should be gathered and a stūpa raised at a crossroads, its finial marked and banners hung, so that all who saw it would be moved and benefited. Four kinds of persons deserve such a stūpa: a tathāgata, a pratyekabuddha, a śrāvaka, and a wheel-turning king, each honored with incense, flowers, banners, and music. The Buddha then had a couch laid between the twin sāla trees, his head to the south and face to the north — since the Dharma, once it spread, would long abide in the northern lands — and lay down on his right side like a reclining lion. Asked how many kinds of burial exist in Jambudvīpa, the Buddha answered, "Countless" — his own land practiced burial by water, fire, and stūpa; the people of China favored carved, bejeweled carriages, music, and chanted songs to please the departed, the body richly dressed and coffined and escorted by many thousands to a splendid resting place; some border peoples kept the coffin in a stone chamber to be opened and the bones washed in times of illness, seeking a cure through merit; and some had no coffin at all, keeping the remains on a high platform to be brought down and prayed over when illness struck. The Buddha said that those who wished to cultivate merit within his own teaching should instead diligently practice the six perfections and uphold the ten good deeds, which alone lead to rebirth in heaven and toward the unsurpassed path (Source: Sūtra of Consecration, fascicle 6; also Dīrgha Āgama, fascicle 1).

The Buddha was at Kuśinagara, beside the Ajitavatī River, between a pair of sāla trees, with a great assembly of monks numbering eighty billion. On the fifteenth day of the second month, as he drew near to nirvāṇa, by his own spiritual power a great sound issued forth, reaching to the highest heaven, proclaiming to all: "Today the Tathāgata, in compassion, has served as your refuge; the World-Honored One is now about to enter nirvāṇa — let any being with any doubt now ask, for this is the last chance." That morning he emitted light from his face, illuminating every world and every destiny, removing every offense and affliction it touched — yet the beings who witnessed this only grieved the more, weeping and crying out as the earth, mountains, and seas shook, and begged the Tathāgata to remain in the world a full kalpa instead.

Great disciples such as Kātyāyana, touched by the light, trembled uncontrollably and cried out in anguish; eighty thousand monks and sixty billion nuns, all arhats, felt every hair stand on end, blood appearing over their bodies; and vast numbers of bodhisattvas, laypeople, kings, and heavenly beings, together with buddhas and disciples from every direction, all wept without restraint at the sign of his coming nirvāṇa. In the assembly there was a craftsman's son of Kuśinagara named Cunda, who, with fifteen companions, begged the Buddha and the sangha to accept one final offering, since from that day they would be without lord, kin, or protector, and wished only that this humble gift precede the Buddha's nirvāṇa. The Buddha said, "I shall now, for your sake, put an end to poverty — let the unsurpassed rain of the Dharma fall upon you, that you may perfect the perfection of giving." The assembly rejoiced, declaring Cunda's offering, once accepted by the Buddha, made him a true child of the Buddha.

"Cunda," the Buddha said, "the time has truly come" — repeating this three times — until Cunda, weeping, led the whole assembly in prostrating themselves and begging the Buddha not to enter nirvāṇa. The Buddha told him not to disturb his own mind with such weeping, for it was precisely out of compassion that he wished to enter nirvāṇa that very day — such is simply the nature of all conditioned things, even for a buddha — and that Cunda should make haste with his offering rather than delay. Cunda brought his prepared meal, still hoping against hope the Buddha might yet be persuaded to remain a kalpa, but was told that the surest way to keep him "long" was instead to complete this final act of giving. The whole assembly, fearing their own offerings would now be wasted beside Cunda's singular merit, watched as the Buddha, wishing to satisfy every hope at once, manifested from every pore of his body countless buddhas each attended by countless monks, all appearing to receive an offering — yet it was Śākyamuni himself who accepted what Cunda had actually prepared, a mere eight measures of cooked rice by Magadhan measure, which by the Buddha's own power proved sufficient to satisfy the entire vast assembly.

Reclining on his right side as though genuinely ill, he told the bodhisattva Kāśyapa that sentient beings, not understanding the secret language of the Mahāyāna's Vaipulya teachings, would suppose the Tathāgata truly sick — but that he manifested this apparent illness deliberately, between the twin sāla trees, so that those disciples not yet arhats, and the mighty ones among them, would be moved to grief, and devas, humans, and asuras alike moved to great offerings, wrapping his body in a thousand lengths of cloth within a coffin of the seven treasures, filled with fragrant oil and cremated — save for two portions of cloth left unburned, so that his relics might later be divided into eight shares for the benefit of all beings. And though all his śrāvaka disciples would say "the Tathāgata has entered nirvāṇa," it should be understood that the Tathāgata, in the final sense, never truly enters nirvāṇa at all, since the Tathāgata abides forever, unchanging; his last testament was simply that they should cast aside greed and lust, uphold his teaching, and practice the path with diligence — for his very form and bearing, once gone, would not be seen again until Maitreya's own advent, some hundred million four hundred thousand years hence.

As the Buddha drew near to nirvāṇa, the earth shook greatly, and even the darkest places the light of sun and moon had never reached were suddenly illuminated; when he passed, the kings of the six desire heavens, various spirits, and his own mother Māyā each composed a verse of lament, and the monks sighed to one another that the Tathāgata's passing had come so swiftly, the world's own eye now extinguished. Aniruddha told them not to grieve so loudly lest the countless devas above take offense at the disturbance. Meanwhile, asked where Ānanda was, Mañjuśrī explained he was some distance away, tormented by tens of thousands of Māra's hosts who had each taken on the Buddha's own likeness to confuse him; the Buddha's own dhāraṇī spell, carried to him by Mañjuśrī, at last dispelled the demons — some of whom, in the process, awakened the aspiration for enlightenment themselves — and Mañjuśrī returned with Ānanda to the Buddha's side.

The Malla people gathered offerings, but when they tried to lift the bier bearing the Buddha's body, none could bear its weight — Aniruddha explained the devas wished it kept seven days so all the people might make their own offerings first. Three times the Tathāgata extended his golden arm from the coffin to ask after Ānanda and the road's preparations, and to confirm that Ānanda had retained every teaching he had given. After the seven days, the procession carried the body in state through the city and across the Hiraṇyavatī River to the Devamukuṭa shrine — but the funeral pyre would not catch fire, for Mahākāśyapa, returning from afar with five hundred disciples, wished to view the Buddha's body first. Learning from a passing ascetic that the Buddha had already died seven days before, Kāśyapa and his disciples wept without restraint, though Upananda urged them not to weep, since freedom from old restraints might now be at hand. Hastening to Kuśinagara, Kāśyapa asked three times to see the Buddha's body, and was told each time that it was already sealed within its coffin and casing, ready for cremation — until, coming before the pyre himself, the Buddha extended both his feet from within the coffin to be seen, their soles marked with wheels of unusual color; Kāśyapa, learning that a woman's tears had once fallen there as she wept before the Buddha, bowed in reverence with the whole assembly, circling the pyre three times, each reciting a verse — and only then, once the fire at last caught and blazed almost beyond control, did the spirit of the sāla trees finally quench it by his own power (Source: Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra; the Dīrgha Āgama's two-fascicle Nirvāṇa Sūtra; also the Sūtra of the Bodhisattva's Descent from Tuṣita).

When the Buddha entered nirvāṇa, Lady Māyā, in heaven, showed the five signs of decline and had five ominous dreams — Sumeru collapsing, rākṣasas gouging out eyes, a deva losing his crown and light, a jeweled banner toppling, a lion's bite like a knife's cut. Waking with a start, she recalled her own dream long ago of a golden deva on a white elephant entering her right side, by which she had conceived the prince who would illuminate the world — and knew at once these new dreams could only mean her son's own nirvāṇa. Aniruddha, having completed the funeral rites, ascended to Trāyastriṃśa Heaven to tell her in verse; overcome and reviving only after a long while, Māyā descended with her attendants to the twin sāla trees, and, finding only his empty robe and bowl there, wailed that her son who had delivered devas and men now left these things ownerless. The Buddha, by his own power, caused the coffin to open of itself, and rose with palms joined in a great light to greet his mother, telling her gently that all conditioned things are simply so by nature, and that she should not weep. Ānanda, restraining his own grief, asked the Buddha how he should answer future generations who would surely ask what was said at this final meeting; the Buddha told him to answer simply that after his nirvāṇa, when Lady Māyā came down, the Tathāgata — for the sake of unfilial beings yet to come — rose from his coffin with palms joined to greet her, and spoke this verse of reverence. This sūtra is named the Sūtra of the Mother and Son Meeting as the Buddha Draws Near to His Final Passing, and is to be received and upheld accordingly (Source: Māyā Sūtra, latter fascicle).