Dialogues of the Buddha, Part II — trans. T. W. and C. A. F. Rhys Davids (1910)

MAHA-SUDASSANA jAtaka.

[• How transient arc all component things.' This the Master told when lying on his death-couch, concerning that word of Ananda the Thera, when he said : — ' Do not, O Exalted One, die in this little town,' and so on.

When the Tathagata was at the Jetavana ] he thought : —

1 It is not easy with our present materials to reconcile the apparently conflicting statements with regard to the Buddha's last journey. According to the Malalahkara-vatthu this refers here to a residence at the Jetavana, which took place between the end of § 23 in Chap. II in the Book of the Great Decease, and the beginning of § 24.

Mr. Fausboll, by his punctuation, includes these words in the following thought ascribed to the Exalted One, but I think they only describe the time at which the thought is supposed to have arisen.

INTRODUCTION. 1 93

'The Thcra Sariputta, who was born at Nalagama, has died, on the day of the full moon in the month of Kattika, in the chamber in which he had been born x ; and Maha-Moggallana in the latter, the dark half of that same month. As my two chief disciples are thus dead, I too will pass away at Kusinara.' Thereupon he proceeded straight on to that place, and lay down on the Uttarasisaka couch, between the twin Sala trees, never to rise again.

Then the venerable Ananda besought him, saying: — 'Let not the Exalted One die in this little township, in this little town in the jungle, in this branch township. Let the Exalted One die in one of the other great cities, such as Rajagaha, and the rest ! '

But the Master answered : — ' Say not, Ananda, that this is
a little township, a little town in the jungle, a branch township.
I was dwelling formerly in this town at the time when I was
Sudassana, the king of kings ; and then it was a great city,
surrounded by a jewelled rampart, twelve leagues in length ! '

And at the request of the Thera, he, telling the tale, uttered the Maha-Sudassana-Sutta 2.]

Now on that occasion when Queen Subhadda saw Maha- Sudassana when he had come down out of the Palace of Righteousness, and was lying down, not far off, on the appropriate couch, spread out in the grove of the seven kinds of gems, and when she said : — ' Thine, O king, are these four and eighty thousand cities, of which the chief is the royal city of Kusavati. Set thy heart on these ' ; —

Then replied Maba-Sudassana: 'Speak not thus, O queen! but exhort me rather, saying : — " Cast away desire for these, long not after them 3." '

1 The text reads ' at Varaka.' But this is a mistake. The word which has puzzled Mr. Fausboll is ovaraka. The modern name of the village, afterwards the site of the famous Buddhist university of Nalanda, is Baragaon. The full-moon day in Kattika is the first of December. An account of the death of Sariputta will be found in the Malalahkara-vatthu (Bigandet, 'Legend,' &c, 3rd ed., II, 1-25), and of the murder of Moggallana by the NigawMas in the Dhammapada commentary (Fausboll, p. 298 seq.), of which Spence Hardy's account (' Manual of Buddhism,' p. 338) is nearly a translation ; and Bigandet's account (loc. cit., pp. 25-7) is an abridgement.

2 In the earliest description of this conversation (above, ' Book of the Great Decease/ V, 17) there is no mention of this. But it is inserted most incongruously in the present Suttanta.

3 Both these speeches are different from those given on the same occasion in the Suttanta below.

III. O

And when she asked : — ' Why so, O king ? ' ' To-day my time is come, and I shall die ! ' was his reply 1.

Then the weeping queen, wiping her eyes, brought herself with difficulty and distress to address him accordingly. And having spoken, she wept, and lamented ; and the other four and eighty thousand women wept too, and lamented ; and of the attendant courtiers not one could restrain himself, but all also wept.