While attending to business at Nagaraka (a town of Kosala), King Pasenadi thinks of the Buddha and drives with his general to the Sakyan town of Medaḷumpa. He enters the Buddha's room, bows with his head to the Buddha's feet, and gives ten reasons for his reverence for the Buddha, ending: “The Blessed One (the Buddha) is a , and I too am a khattiya; the Blessed One is a Kosalan, and I too am a Kosalan; the Blessed One is eighty, and I too am eighty.” After the king leaves, the Buddha tells the monks to remember these words, calling them “monuments to the Dhamma”, meaning expressions in words of reverence for the teaching. Pali Canon
Different Accounts
Age: the Dhammacetiya Sutta of the Majjhima Nikāya of the Southern tradition and the Fa zhuangyan jing of the Chinese Madhyama Āgama both have eighty; the Chinese Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya has “past eighty”.
More differences between accounts (2)
Place: the Southern tradition has the town of Medaḷumpa; the Chinese Madhyama Āgama has “a Sakyan town named Medaḷumpa”; the Chinese Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya has the Sakyan Miaoguang Park. Taishō Canon
More sources (2)
Conflict with Year 45 after the Awakening: according to the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta of the Southern tradition, in his last year the Buddha set out from Rājagaha northwards to Kusinārā, and no source says he passed through a Sakyan town on the way; the Chinese Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, however, says the Buddha was at this time on his way to Rājagaha.
Dating
Estimated in Year 45 after the Awakening, before the (the Buddha aged seventy-nine to eighty). The canonical texts say only that it was in the Buddha's last years, but the discourse states that the Buddha was eighty, so it is placed in the year the Buddha turned eighty; the later commentaries of the Southern tradition also say that this visit to the Buddha and King Pasenadi's loss of his throne fell on the same day.
Related Entries
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Research Notes: Reliability, Dating and Sources
- How Reliability Is Assessed
Recorded by two schools, the Pali canon of the Southern tradition and the Chinese Madhyama Āgama. Recorded by two schools.
- Dating Evidence and Precision
Stated in the canonical text (the text itself gives the time). Time precision: year only.
Sources
- Pali Canon巴利 MN 89:2.1
- 大正藏大正藏 T01 no.26 p.795b–797c
- 大正藏大正藏 T01 no.26 p.797b
- 大正藏大正藏 T24 no.1451 p.238a–b
- 大正藏大正藏 T24 no.1451 p.238b
- 巴利註解書巴利註釋 MN-a，§364–374
- 巴利註解書巴利註釋 MN-a，PTS 3.348–3.355
- 大正藏大正藏 T24 no.1451 p.238c