‘O Ānanda, I am now grown old, and full of years, and my journey is drawing to its close; I have reached eighty years—my sum of days—and just as a worn-out cart can only with much care be made to move along, so my body can only be kept going with difficulty. It is only when I become plunged in meditation that my body is at ease. In future be ye to yourselves your own light, your own refuge; seek no other refuge. Hold fast to the truth as your lamp. Hold fast to the truth as your refuge; look not to any one but yourselves as a refuge’ (Mahā-parinibbāna-sutta II. 32, 33).
Afterwards he gave a summary of every monk’s duties, thus:—‘Which then, O monks, are the truths (=the seven jewels, [p. 127]) it behoves you to spread abroad, out of pity for the world, for the good of gods and men? They are: 1. the four earnest reflections (Smṛiti, Sati-paṭṭhāna, on the impurities of the body, on the impermanence of the sensations, of the thoughts, of the conditions of existence, [p. 127]); 2. the four right exertions (Sammappadhāna, viz. to prevent demerit from arising, get rid of it when arisen, produce merit, increase it); 3. the four paths to supernatural power (Iddhi-pāda, viz. will, effort, thought, intense thought); 4. the five forces (Pañća-bala, viz. faith, energy, recollection, self-concentration, reason); 5. the proper use of the five organs of sense; 6. the seven ‘limbs’ of knowledge (Bodhy-aṅga, viz. recollection, investigation, energy, joy, serenity, concentration of mind, equanimity); 7. the noble ‘eightfold path’ ([p. 44]). See Mahā-parinibbāna III. 65.
Then shortly before his decease, he said, ‘It may be, Ānanda, that in some of you the thought may arise:—The words of our Teacher are ended; we have lost our Master. But it is not thus. The truths and the rules of the Order, which I have taught and preached, let these be your teacher, when I am gone’ (VI. 1).
‘Behold now, O monks, I exhort you:—Everything that cometh into being passeth away; work out your own perfection with diligence’ (III. 66).
Not long after his last utterances the Buddha, who had before through intense meditation attained Nirvāṇa or extinction of the fire of desires, passed through the four stages of meditation ([p. 209]) till the moment came for his Pari-nirvāṇa, whereby the fire of life also was extinguished. A couch had been placed for him between two Ṡāl trees ([p. 23]), with the head towards the north. In sculptures he is represented as lying on his right side at the moment of death, and images of him in this position are highly venerated.
The chief men of Kuṡi-nagara burnt his body with the ceremonies usual at the death of a Ćakravartin or Universal Ruler, which the Buddha claimed to be.
Then his ashes were distributed among eight princes, who built Stūpas over them (Buddha-vaṉsa 28).
A legend states that when the Buddha died there was an earthquake. Then the gods Brahmā and Indra appeared and the latter exclaimed: ‘Transient are all the elements of being; birth and decay are their nature; they are born and dissolved; then only is happiness when they have ceased to be’ (Mahā-p° VI. 16).
Contrast with Buddha’s last words the last words of Christ: ‘Father, into Thy hands I commend my Spirit.’
A greater contrast than that presented by the account of the Buddha’s death and the Gospel narrative of the death of Christ can scarcely be imagined.