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 thought of him not as an ancient semi-divine figure like Rama or Krishna but as something human and concrete.

Seven persons or communities sent requests for a portion of the relics, saying that they would erect a stupa over them and hold a feast.  They were King Ajatasattu of Magadha, the Licchavis of Vesali, the Sakyas of Kapilavatthu, the Bulis of Allakappa, the Kotiyas of Ramagama, the Mallas of Pava[384] and the Brahman of Vethadipa.  All except the last were Kshatriyas and based their claim on the ground that they like the Buddha belonged to the warrior caste.  The Mallas at first refused, but a Brahman called Dona bade them not quarrel over the remains of him who taught forbearance.  So he divided the relics into eight parts, one for Kusinara and one for each of the other seven claimants.  At this juncture the Moriyas of Pipphalivana sent in a claim for a share but had to be content with the embers of the pyre since all the bones had been distributed.  Then eight stupas were built for the relics in the towns mentioned and one over the embers and one by Dona the Brahman over the iron vessel in which the body had been burnt.

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