กุสินารา สถานที่ปรินิพพาน (Kusinagar)

Kusinara, the Place of the Buddha’ Parinibbana


I. Location and Historical Significance

Kusinara (Kusinagar, Kushinagar) is the place where the Buddha passed away at the age of eighty (reached Mahaparinibbana, “the great fullness of Enlightenment”). It is about thirty-four miles east of Gorakhpur in the state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India. It is next to the town of Kasia (Kusia). Ancient Kasia, known as Kushavati, though not very large, was the center of the Malla tribe of eastern India. The Buddha himself provides some historical perspective on the old town. In the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, defending his choice of Kusinara as the place of his passing away in the face of Ananda’s opposition, the Buddha says that Kusinara, named Kusavati in previous times, was once a rich and populous capital that never slept, ruled by the righteous King Mahasudassana, who had conquered all the adjoining areas (cf. the “Mahaparinibbana Sutta: The Great Passing; The Buddha’s Last Days,” in The Long Discourses of the Buddha (Digha Nikaya), II:16.5.18).

Over the centuries following the Buddha’s death, Kusinara had an up-and-down history (cf. Middle Land, Middle Way; A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Buddha’s India, by Ven. S. Dhammika, p. 167, for what follows in the rest of this section). When Huien Tsiang came to Kusinara in the early part of the seventh century, the place was already in ruins. However, a few decades later when I Tsing came, there were more than one hundred monks there, with five hundred there during the pilgrimage season. When the Korean Hye Ch’o traveled there about 725 A.D., the place was once again in decline. The site was more or less abandoned. After 725 A.D., even before the Muslim invasions, historical records are silent about Kusinara.

After hundreds of years of neglect following the Muslim invasions, Kusinara was rediscovered in the middle of the nineteenth century. At the suggestion of H. H. Wilson in 1854 that the town of Kasia might be Kusinara, Alexander Cunningham visited the area in 1861-62 and agreed with Wilson’s assessment. In 1876 Cunningham’s assistant, A. C. L. Carlleyle, excavated the area around Kasia. He found the large reclining Buddha statue currently exhibited in the Nirvana Temple at Kusinara. However, only after further excavations between 1904 and 1912 which produced seals and an inscription was there conclusive proof that Kasia was ancient Kusinara. Just as the Burmese played a key role in the preservation of the shrine of Bodh Gaya through their missions to repair the premises, so, too, did they play a role in the rejuvenation of Kusinara. For in the 1900s Venerable U. Chandramani, a monk from Burma, made a pilgrimage to Kusinara, built a temple there, and in the following years took care of the visitors who began coming. In 1956 the Government of India built the presently existing Nirvana Temple at Kusnara in conjunction with the Buddha Jayanti Celebrations, the 2500th anniversary of the Buddha’s death, when Buddha Jayanti Park was built in Delhi.



II. The Story of the Buddha’s Passing Away:
a Synopsis of the Text

The Mahaparinibbana Sutta in the Digha Nikaya is the story of the Buddha’s passing away. The first two-thirds of the sutta (II:16.1.1-4.43) deal with a variety of topics leading up to the final journey to Kusinara: the discussions on morality, the Noble Truths, and the Mirror of Dhamma; the trip to the grove of Ambapali, the courtesan, and the meal with her; the Buddha’s sickness at Beluva during the rainy season; the discussion of the Dhamma as an island and of the four roads to power; the evil Mara’s visit with the Buddha at Capala Shrine three months before the Parinibbana; the discussion of the eight stages of mastery and eight stages of liberation; the discourse to the assembly of the monks in the Great Forest; the Buddha’s final trip to Vesali for alms; the discourse to the monks at Bhandagama and several other locations; the meal prepared by Cunda, the smith, at Pava and the Buddha’s ensuing sickness; and the visit of Pukkusa, a student of Alara Kalama, with the Buddha on his final journey from Pava to Kusinara.

Of the events leading up to the trip to Kusinara, the incident involving Cunda is important and instructive (cf. 4.13-20, 4.42). The Buddha, Ananda, and a large group of monks traveled to Pava to the mango grove of Cunda, the smith. The Buddha instructed him on the Dhamma. Cunda, in turn, offered to prepare a meal of “pig’s delight.” After the Buddha had eaten the meal, he became so sick it was as if he were going to die. However, he endured his sickness with mindfulness and did not complain. He then suggested to Ananda that they journey to Kusinara. While resting on the road, the Buddha exhibited his special powers by making the dirty water of a stream clean so that Ananda could bring him it to him to drink. Later the Buddha instructed Ananda on what to say to Cunda so that the latter would not feel remorse about the sickness he had caused.

The last third of the Mahaparinibbana Sutta (II:16.5.1-6.28) covers the passing away of the Buddha and the events immediately prior to this. The Buddha, Ananda, and a large group of monks crossed the Hirannavati River to the sala grove near Kusinara in preparation for the Parinibbana. At the Buddha’s behest, Ananda prepared a bed between two sala trees with the head to the north. The Buddha was tired and wanted to lie down. The Buddha told Upavana, standing in front fanning him, to move to the side so the devas from ten world-spheres could see him. They knew he would take leave of the earth in the last watch of the night, and they wanted to see him while they had the chance. Ananda asked the Buddha what was to be done with his remains. The Buddha said his remains were to be treated like the remains of a “wheel-turning monarch” (5.11): they were to be wrapped 500 times in cotton and a new cloth, placed in an iron oil-vat, and cremated on a perfumed funeral pyre; then a stupa was to be built at the crossroads. Ananda wept at the thought of the Buddha’s passing away, but he reminded his disciple that everything pleasant and delightful is changeable, i.e., that everything that is born decays. Ananda expressed the wish that the Buddha not die in the miserable little town of Kusinara, but the latter recounted the glorious history of ancient Kusavati and its ruler, King Mahasudassana. The Buddha sent Ananda to Kusinara to tell the Mallas there of his imminent passing away. The Mallas came to the sala grove with great weeping and, family-by-family, paid homage to him.

It happened at that time that a wanderer by the name of Subhadda was in Kusinara. Hearing that the Buddha was about to pass away, he went to the sala grove to gain Enlightenment. Though Ananda insisted several times that Subhadda not disturb the Buddha, the Buddha urged his disciple to let the wanderer see him. Subhadda asked the Buddha if the famous ascetics and Brahmins had realized the truth, or not. The Buddha, typically, refused to be drawn into a debate about other doctrines. His tact was to shift the focus to the efficaciousness, therefore validity, of his own teaching: only the Dhamma with the Noble Eightfold Path had produced Stream-Winners, Once-Returners, Non-Returners, and Arahants (cf. 5.27). (This little passage is quite significant for providing some insight into the way in which the Buddha “defends” his teaching in the face of contending doctrines without engaging in debate. It can be studied in the context of two other masterful pieces: the “Dighanakha Sutta; To Dighanakha,” in The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (Majjhima Nikaya), Number 74 (“debate” by accepting a view at face value and showing it is untenable (Dighanakha’s “Nothing is acceptable to me”) (74.6-8); and the ensuing brief analysis of material form, and of kinds of feelings, here representative of all mental factors—an analysis which leads to liberation (9-13)); and the “Satipatthana Sutta; The Foundations of Mindfulness,” in The Middle Length Discourses, No. 10 (a full-blown analysis of material forms, mental factors, etc.: mindfulness/insight meditation leading to liberation).) Subhadda subsequently saw the truth of the Dhamma and was ordained—the Buddha’s last personal disciple.

The Buddha spoke further, first to Ananda, then to the assembly of the monks. He told Ananda he would have no successor: the only teacher after his death would be the Dhamma itself. To the assembly of the monks he spoke his last words: “all conditioned things are of a nature to decay—strive on untiringly” (6.7).

Having gone through the various jhanas and Spheres, the Buddha passed away (cf. 6.8-6.9: the four jhanas and the various Spheres, e.g., the Sphere of Neither-Perception-Nor-Non-Perception, the Sphere of No-Thingness, etc.; cf., also, 3.33: the eight liberations). A terrible earthquake occurred, together with thunder. Some of the monks wept passionately; others bore their loss mindfully. The next morning the monk Anuruddha sent Ananda to Kusinara to tell the Mallas about the death of the Buddha. The Mallas, anguished and sorrowful, came to pay homage, paying respect with song and dance for six days. On the seventh day they carried the body through the city to the shrine of Makuta-Bandhana and wrapped the body in linen and cotton wool. The Venerable Kassapa the Great, who had been traveling from Pava to Kusinara with an entourage of monks, went to the Mallas’ shrine to pay homage. Once he had done so, the funeral pyre ignited by itself, and the Buddha’s body was burned so that only the bones remained. The leaders of eight cities—Magadha, Vesali, Kapilavatthu, Allakappa, Ramagama, Vethadipa, Pava, and Kusinara—laid claim to the relics of the Buddha. The Brahmin Dona divided the relics among the eight cities. The leaders of the eight cities built stupas for the relics, Dona build a stupa for the urn, and the Moriyas of Pipphalavana built a stupa for the embers in their city.

III. What to See at Kusinara Today

Why go to Kusinara? It is one of the four sites the Buddha himself recommended the faithful visit: the place of his birth, Lumbini Park; the place of his Enlightenment, Bodh Gaya; the place of his first discourse, Sarnath—and the place of his passing away, Kusinara (cf. 5.8 of the Mahaparinibbana Sutta).

Kusinara today is noteworthy both for the ancient monuments to be found there as well as for the temples that have recently been built (for the following, cf. D. C. Ahir, Buddhism in Modern India, pp. 46-48; cf., also, Dhammika, Middle Land, Middle Way, pp. 168-169). The temple by which Kusinara is recognized today is the Nirvana Temple with its barrel-vaulted roof and its large round glass windows. It is at the site of the ancient temple, which also had a barrel-vaulted roof. The Nirvana Temple is noteworthy for the large reclining Buddha statue that it contains. This statue, twenty feet long and dating from the 400s A.D., was carved from one piece of red sandstone. Carlleyle found it in 1876 when he excavated at the site of the original temple. Behind the Nirvana Temple is the main stupa, seventy-five feet high, which was restored by Venerable U. Chandramani, the Burmese monk, in 1927. There is some difference of opinion about whether the Buddha passed away at the spot where the temple exists or where the stupa exists. (According to Ahir, p. 47, the reclining statue in the temple is thought to be the place where the Buddha died. According to Dhammika, p. 168, however, the stupa marks the spot. Dhammika argues that the present stupa consists of stupas within stupas, in the first of which were found charcoal and black earth, presumably from a funeral pyre. It is not clear why material from the site of the creation stupa were be present in the main stupa.) Down the road and south of the Nirvana temple and the main stupa lies the Matha-Kuar temple. It should be noted that this is the temple that was built in 1927 by the Burmese to hold a large Buddha statue. This statue, ten feet high and about 1000 years old, represents the Buddha in the earth-touching position under the bodhi tree at the time of his Enlightenment. About one mile east of the Matha-Kuar temple is the remains of the cremation stupa, the Makutabandhana Chaitya (the site of the Mallas shrine) or Ramabhar stupa (from the name of the nearby pond), where the Buddha’s body was burned. The cremation stupa was a drum-shaped structure. It was large: it was 112 feet in diameter, its base 155 feet in diameter. Modern temples, lastly, have also been constructed at Kusinara by the people of China, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Japan.