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A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms / Being an account by the Chinese monk Fâ-hien of his travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 399-414) in search of the Buddhist books of discipline cover

A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms / Being an account by the Chinese monk Fâ-hien of his travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 399-414) in search of the Buddhist books of discipline

Chapter 28: CHAPTER XXIV. WHERE BUDDHA FINALLY RENOUNCED THE WORLD, AND WHERE HE DIED.
By Faxian
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About This Book

A travel narrative recounts a lengthy pilgrimage undertaken to obtain authoritative Buddhist scriptures, offering sequential accounts of routes, towns, and regions visited. It records detailed descriptions of monasteries, relics, stupas, festivals, and local legends tied to sacred sites, together with observations on monastic discipline, communal practices, and material culture. The text is arranged chapter by chapter around places of interest and is accompanied by explanatory notes, textual annotations, and occasional reflections on religious observance and geography.

CHAPTER XXIV.
WHERE BUDDHA FINALLY RENOUNCED THE WORLD, AND WHERE HE DIED.

[Chinese]

East from here four yojanas, there is the place where the heir-apparent sent back Chaṇḍaka, with his white horse;1 and there also a tope was erected.

Four yojanas to the east from this, (the travellers) came to the Charcoal tope,2 where there is also a monastery.

Going on twelve yojanas, still to the east, they came to the city of Kuśanagara,3 on the north of which, between two trees,4 on the bank of the Nairañjanâ5 river, is the place where the World-honoured one, with his head to the north, attained to pari-nirvâṇa (and died). There also are the places where Subhadra,6 the last (of his converts), attained to Wisdom (and became an Arhat); where in his coffin of gold they made offerings to the World-honoured one for seven days,7 where the Vajrapâṇi laid aside his golden club,8 and where the eight kings divided the relics (of the burnt body)9:—at all these places were built topes and monasteries, all of which are now existing.