Ānanda asks how the Buddha's body should be treated after his passing. The Buddha says they need not concern themselves with it, for faithful , and lay followers will honour it; the body should be treated in the manner of a wheel-turning monarch (a sage king who rules the whole world), wrapped in layer upon layer of cloth, placed in a trough, cremated with fragrant wood, and a stūpa raised at a crossroads. The Pali canon of the Southern tradition and the Chinese Youxing jing add that four kinds of person deserve a stūpa: a Tathāgata, a , a disciple who has attained realization through the Buddha's teaching, and a wheel-turning monarch. Taishō Canon
Pali Canon
Different Accounts
The number of wrappings differs between sources: five hundred pairs of cloths, five hundred cloths, a thousand layers and so on.
More differences between accounts (3)
The coffin: the Pali canon of the Southern tradition has a double iron trough filled with oil; the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra translated by Faxian has four coffins of gold, silver, copper and iron.
The Chinese Fo bannihuan jing says the should be kept in the palace hall for ninety days before the stūpa is built at the crossroads.
The place where this is said differs: the Pali canon of the Southern tradition has the sāla grove at Kusinārā; the Chinese Youxing jing has beneath a tree by the Kakutthā river.
Dating
Year 45 after the Awakening, the Buddha aged seventy-nine to eighty, after the , from the evening into the night of the day of the passing; the day is stated in the canonical text, and by the later commentaries of the Southern tradition it is the full moon of Vesākha; it can be fixed to the day.
Related Entries
- Year
- Places
- People
- Discourses
Research Notes: Reliability, Dating and Sources
- How Reliability Is Assessed
The episode of “the funeral in the manner of a wheel-turning monarch” is recorded by five schools: the Pali canon of the Southern tradition, the Chinese Dīrgha Āgama, the Sanskrit Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, the Chinese Fo bannihuan jing and Bannihuan jing and the Chinese three-fascicle Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra. Attested across multiple schools. The “four kinds of person deserving a stūpa” within it are recorded by two schools, the Pali canon of the Southern tradition and the Chinese Dīrgha Āgama.
- Dating Evidence and Precision
Stated in the canonical text (the text itself gives the time). Time precision: fixed to the day.
Sources
- 藏譯（德格版）德格版 D6 da 275b6–276a3
- 大正藏大正藏 T01 no.5 p.174b
- 藏譯（德格版）德格版 D6 da 275b6–276a2
- 梵文原典梵文《大般涅槃經》§27–32.42
- Pali Canon巴利 DN 16:5.10.1–5.12.20
- 大正藏大正藏 T01 no.1 p.20a–b
- 大正藏大正藏 T01 no.5 p.169a–b
- 大正藏大正藏 T01 no.6 p.186c
- 大正藏大正藏 T01 no.7 p.199c–200a
- 大正藏大正藏 T24 no.1451 p.394c
- 巴利註解書巴利註釋 Ap-a，§82