ABSTRACT
TНЕ account of Buddha’s last days is contained in three suttas. 1 These are not properly speaking discourses, but portions of legend in which discourses have been inserted. The chief of them, the Great Discourse of the attainment of Nirvāṇa, is known to have existed in several schools. It tells of the journey of Buddha from Rājagaha across the Ganges to Vesālï, where he spent Retreat for the last time, and then by stages to Kusinārā in the country of the Mallas, where he passed away. The references in it to the practice of pilgrimages, to later events mentioned in the form of prophecies, and allusions that show a developed form of the Canon, indicate that it is one of the very latest portions of the Scriptures.
