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• The Buddha’s final lap of a samsaric journey of countless births

After staying many months at Magadha’s capital, Rajagaha, the Buddha is conscious the year will be his last on earth. He is eighty and, as he tells his most faithful disciple, the chronicler of his life, Ananda, he feels as if he were a ‘worn out cart.’ Forty-five years of missionary work, travelling tirelessly from town to town, from village to village expounding the Dhamma has taken its toll, and the fatigue is beginning to tell.

Even a Buddha’s mortal frame is subject to the inevitable decay that all flesh is heir to, and Gautama the Buddha is no exception; and, though strong in will, he feels the strain of the taxing years catching up to lay siege on his once strong physique.  He knows the oil in his lamp will dry out that year and decides it shall not be at kingly capitals like Rajagaha or Kosala’s Savatthi but at the far-off, unknown hamlet of Kusinara, where the light that illumined the world of darkness shall burst forth its last ray of radiance.

Before he leaves Rajagaha, he counsels a delegation sent by the patricide King Ajātasattu against waging war on the Vajjians of Vesali, if the Vajjians still upheld the code he had once asked them to follow. Thereafter, he lays down a similar Licchavi Code for his bhikkus to uphold. There’s more for them.  He lists seven activities they should not do.  The first is ‘not be fond of, or delight in, or engage in, business.’

In the evening’s twilight glow, the Buddha steps out of the city gates with nothing more than a robe and a bowl to walk alone the final lap of his long samsaric journey of countless births. However, Ananda accompanies him on this grueling two-hundred-mile journey by foot.

They travel to Ambalatthika and then to Nalanda. At every place, the Buddha meets the disciples, advises them on the salient points of the Dhamma before moving on. After sojourning many months at various places, he crosses the Ganges at Pataligama and proceeds to Kotigama and then to Nadika.

After a brief sojourn, he’s on the move again. And passes many towns and villages to arrive at the prosperous city of Vesali. He stays with his disciples at the mango grove of the beautiful courtesan, Ambapali.

She invites the Buddha for a meal the following day; and though the Licchavi elite offer her a large bribe to withdraw the invite and grant them the opportunity to play host to the Buddha, she rejects their offer outright. The Buddha and his disciples have their meal at her residence. After the meal, Ambapali, who will later enter the Order and attain Enlightenment, invites the Buddha and his retinue to spend the rainy season in her sprawling mango grove.

But the Buddha has other plans. He advises the monks to spend their annual retreat in Vesali or close to it. As for himself, he heads to Beluva, a small village on the outskirts of Vesali.  Here he will spend his forty-fifth retreat, the last retreat of his abodeless life.

The monsoon rains subside and cease. Nature’s shower rejuvenates the earth and invokes the birth of spring. But in nature’s cycle of birth and death, the Buddha sees his winter fast approaching. During the ‘vas’ season, violent pangs of pain had continuously assaulted his body. But with iron will, he had borne them all; and now, though sufficiently recovered, he becomes more conscious, he will soon pass away. All roads point to Kusinara. Even as all roads will lead to each one’s final destination: their own Kusinara.

He tells Ananda: ‘I am now old and decrepit. A worn-out cart moved only by the aid of thongs.

Whenever, Ananda, the Tathāgata lives plunged in signless mental one-pointedness, by the cessation of certain feelings and unmindful of all objects, then only is the body of the Tathāgata at ease.’

Another day, with his task done, with his doctrine firmly established in the minds of householders and abodeless, and deciding not to control the remainder of his life span by will power and by experiencing the bliss of Arahantship, the Buddha tells Ananda, he will pass away in three months.

Ananda instantly recalls the Buddha telling him days earlier: ‘Whosoever has cultivated, developed, mastered, made a basis of, experienced, practiced, thoroughly acquired the four Means of Accomplishment could, if he so desires, live for an aeon or even a little more. The Tathagata has done all that; he could, if he wished, live out the age or what remains of the age.’

Ananda is struck by remorse. Even when such a plain signal had been given, he had failed to grasp its true import. He had failed to implore the Buddha to live out the age for the good and welfare of gods and men. Instead, he had remained silent. Twice more had the Buddha repeated it. Twice more had he remained silent.

FINAL LIBERATION: The Buddha attains the supreme, permanent bliss of Nirvana (A painting at the Kelaniya Temple depicting the scene of his Parinibbana)

But unbeknown to Ananda, that same night at the Capala shrine, the Buddha had relinquished his will to live.

Now, when the Buddha repeats it for the fourth time, Ananda implores him to live for an aeon for the happiness of both gods and men.  But the Buddha is quick to cut him short. ‘Enough,’ he says, ‘beseech not the Tathāgata. If you had implored me the first time I said it, or the second time I said it, I would have refused twice. But if you had implored me the third time I said it, I would not have refused you. The time for making such a request is now past.’

He then asks Ananda to assemble all the bhikkus in the vicinity of Vesali. At the Mahavana’s Pinnacled Hall, he extorts the bhikkus to practice well, to cultivate and develop, the truths he had expounded to them. And then he says: ‘O’ bhikkus, I declare this to you: It is in the nature of all formations to dissolve. At the end of three months from now, the Tathāgata will pass away.’

When morning comes he visits Vesali for alms. After one last gaze at Vesali, he sets off on the lonely road of no return. The three-month long road to Kusinara.

The first stop is Bhandagama. He breaks journey and meets his disciples, advises them, clarifying doubts they may have on any aspect of the Dhamma. It’s the same at Hatthigama. The same at every place he stops. He is anxious to clear any residual doubts they may have and eager to ensure that the pristine Dhamma will not be stained by future corruption.

At Bhoganagara, he stays at the Ananda Shrine. Foreseeing how distortions can creep into the Dhamma, he advises the monks to guard against such intrusions by reference to the disciplinary code and to his discourses.  If the validity of a statement is not verified nor confirmed by either the Vinaya or Suttas, it must be rejected. It must be discarded as ‘This is not the Blessed One’s word.’

The next stop is Pava. He stays at the mango grove of a goldsmith’s son, Cunda. Hearing of the Buddha’s arrival in Pava, he visits the Buddha and invites him for a meal at his home. The Buddha consents in silence. After he and his disciples had partaken of the repast, the Buddha suddenly takes ill. He is stricken with stomach pains. He bears it with stoic composure. Then he tells Ananda. ‘Come, Ananda, let us go to Kusinara.’

Once more the Buddha resumes the road to Kusinara. It’s a harsh road, with each step wracked with pain. On the way, the Buddha feels tired and stops to rest at the root of a tree. From the opposite direction, there comes a man on his way to Pava.

His name is Pukkusa. He sees the Buddha resting near the tree. He is fascinated by the Buddha’s serenity.  He is enamoured of the Buddha’s imperturbability. He pays homage to the Buddha; and begs the Buddha to accept from him a pair of golden robes. The Buddha accepts both, one for himself and the other for Ananda.

Ananda places the gold robe on the Buddha’s body and is immediately astonished to find the golden robe, next to the Buddha’s skin, lose its brilliant sheen. Wonder-struck Ananda marvels how pure, how bright, how radiant the Buddha’s complexion has suddenly become.

The Buddha says: ‘So it is, Ananda, so it is. There are two occasions when the colour of the Perfect One’s skin becomes exceptionally clear and bright. One is on the eve of discovery, when he is on the threshold of supreme enlightenment; and the other on the eve of his Nirvana. ‘

‘In fact,’ he says, ‘it will be in the last watch of this coming night, between the twin sal trees at the turn to Kusinara.’

The Buddha continues his last journey till he reaches the River Kakuttha. He bathes in its waters and then retires to rest in the shade of a mango grove. He lays down on his right side in the lion’s sleeping pose with one foot over the other.

When he awakes he tells Ananda that it’s possible that some might provoke remorse in Cunda. If so, it must be countered thus: ‘It’s no loss for Cunda but a great gain for Cunda, that the Perfect One attained Nirvana after receiving his last meal from him. Say you heard it from the Buddha’s own lips. ‘There’re two kinds of almsfood with equal fruit and equal ripening, and their fruit and ripening is far greater than any other. They are the almsfood after eating which one discovers enlightenment; and the almsfood after eating which a Perfect One attains Nirvana.’

After the rest, the journey is resumed; only a few more miles remain; and he walks the road to Kusinara, to the further banks of the river Hirannavati to keep his rendezvous with Nirvana, beneath the twin sal trees.

They await his coming. The two sal trees, like two giant sentinels on duty, stand guard at the Kusinara turn-off, their blossoms poised to shed their fragrance in the evening air when the Buddha arrives at this remote, unknown, inconsequential place, he had designated as the venue for his final farewell.

Attendant by his disciples, the Buddha presently arrives at the appointed site.  It is the end of a two-hundred-mile journey which had begun at Rajagaha’s Veluvana Park to conclude in the boonies of Kusinara.

But more importantly, it’s the climax of a long samsaric journey that had begun aeons before in one of his countless existences, when, marooned at sea, he had safely borne his mother to shore, and heard her voice implore:  ‘May the merit you gained saving my life, blossom to make you a Buddha, my son.’

All his voyages thence on samsara’s turbulent sea had braved the gales and storms to reach this final port from whence he will never return to endure the recurrent tide and ebb of life.  Endless sorrow ends at Kusinara, where he will gain final liberation.

Beneath the twin sal trees, surrounded by a throng of gods and disciples, the Tathagata says his last words: ‘All compounded things are subject to change and decay. Strive on with diligence.’

The Buddha enters the first ecstasy. Then rising from the first, he enters the second ecstasy, then the third and the fourth. Rising from the fourth ecstasy, he enters the sphere of infinite space, then infinite consciousness then nothingness, the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception. Then rising from that sphere, he attains the cessation of perception and feeling.

Then the Buddha rises from the state of cessation of perception and feeling and enters the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception. Then, in reverse order, enters nothingness, then infinite consciousness, infinite space, then the fourth ecstasy, the third, the second and then the first. Then he rises from the first ecstasy, the second, the third and then the fourth.

And finally rising from the fourth ecstasy, the Buddha immediately passes away in the third watch, the last watch of the night, and attains that indescribable state of permanent bliss, the supreme joy of Nirvana.