weak (to bear)! remembers all his former births, through countless kalpas none forgotten!  His senses wandering through the fields of sense, all these distinctly remembered; knowing the wisdom learned in every state of mind, all this perfectly understood!  By spiritual discernment and pure mysterious wisdom equally surveying all things! every vestige of imperfection removed! thus he has accomplished all he had to do.  By wisdom rejecting other spheres of life, his wisdom now completely perfected, lo! he dies! let the world, hard and unyielding, still, beholding it, relent!

“All living things though blunt in sense, beholding him, receive the enlightenment of wisdom! their endless evil deeds long past, as they behold, are cancelled and completely cleansed!  In a moment gone! who shall again exhibit qualities like his? no saviour now in all the world—­our hope cut off, our very breath is stopped and gone!  Who now shall give us life again with the cool water of his doctrine? his own great work accomplished, his great compassion now has ceased to work for long:  has long ceased or stopped!  The world ensnared in the toils of folly, who shall destroy the net? who shall, by his teaching, cause the stream of birth and death to turn again?  Who shall declare the way of rest to instruct the heart of all that lives, deceived by ignorance?  Who will point out the quiet place, or who make known the one true doctrine?

“All flesh suffering great sorrow, who shall deliver, like a loving father?  Like the horse changing his master loses all gracefulness, as he forgets his many words of guidance! as a king without a kingdom, such is the world without a Buddha! as a disciple with no power of dialectic left, or like a physician without wisdom, as men whose king has lost the marks of royalty, so, Buddha dead, the world has lost its glory! the gentle horses left without a charioteer, the boat without a pilot left!  The three divisions of an army left without a general! the merchantman without a guide! the suffering and diseased without a physician! a holy king without his seven insignia.  The stars without the moon! the loving years without the power of life! such is the world now that Buddha, the great teacher, dies!”

Thus spake the Arhat, all done that should be done, all imperfections quite removed, knowing the meed of gratitude, he was grateful therefore.  Thus thinking of his master’s love he spake! setting forth the world’s great sorrow; whilst those, not yet freed from the power of passion, wept with many tears, unable to control themselves.  Yet even those who had put away all faults, sighed as they thought of the pain of birth and death.  And now the Malla host hearing that Buddha had attained Nirvana, with cries confused, wept piteously, greatly moved, as when a flight of herons meet a hawk.  In a body now they reach the twin trees, and as they gaze upon Tathagata dead, entered on his long sleep, those features never again to awake to consciousness, they smote their breasts and sighed to heaven; as when a lion seizing on a calf, the whole herd rushes on with mingled sounds.