upon him even unto death. But the Blessed One, mindful and self-possessed, bore it without complaint."
On his way from Pava to Kusinagara, Gautama converted a low-caste man Pukkusa. At Kusinagara, eighty miles due east from Kapilavastu, Gautama felt that his death was nigh. With that loving anxiety which had characterized all his life, he tried on the eve of his death to impress on his followers that Chunda was not to blame for the food he had supplied, but that the humble smith's act, kindly meant, would redound to length of life, to good birth, and to good fortune.
It is said that just before his death the trees were in bloom out of season, and sprinkled flowers on him; that heavenly flowers and sandalwood powder descended on him, and that music and heavenly songs were wafted from the sky. But the great apostle of holy life said, "It is not thus, Ananda, that the Tathagata (Buddha) is rightly honoured, reverenced, venerated, held sacred, or revered. But the brother or the sister, the devout man or the devout woman, who continually fulfils all the greater and the lesser duties, who is correct in life, walking according to precepts—it is he who rightly honours, reverences, venerates, holds sacred, and reveres the Tathagata with the worthiest homage."
On the night of Gautama's death, Subhadra, a Brahman philosopher of Kusinagara, came to ask some questions, but Ananda, fearing that this might be wearisome to the dying sage, would not admit him. Gautama, however, had overheard their conversation, and he would not turn back a man who had come for
