Then they went on[378] to a grove at Kusinara, and he lay down on a couch spread between two Sala trees.  These trees were in full bloom, though it was not the season for their flowering; heavenly strains and odours filled the air and spirits unseen crowded round the 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.

Now comes the last watch of the night.  “It may be, Ananda,” said the Buddha, “that some of you may think, the word of the Master is ended.  We have no more a teacher.  But you should not think thus.  The truths and the rules which I have declared and laid down for you all, let them be the teacher for you after I am gone.