The ''Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta'' is Sutta 16 in the ''

Digha Nikaya Digha is a seaside resort town in the state of West Bengal, India. It lies in Purba Medinipur district and at the northern end of the Bay of Bengal. It has a low gradient with a shallow sand beach. It is a popular sea resort in West Bengal. Hi ...

'', a scripture belonging to the Sutta Pitaka of

Theravada Buddhism ''Theravāda'' () ( si, ථේරවාදය, my, ထေရဝါဒ, th, เถรวาท, km, ថេរវាទ, lo, ເຖຣະວາດ, pi, , ) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school' ...

. It concerns the end of

Gautama Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...

's life - his

parinibbana In Buddhism, ''parinirvana'' (Sanskrit: '; Pali: ') is commonly used to refer to nirvana-after-death, which occurs upon the death of someone who has attained ''nirvana'' during their lifetime. It implies a release from '' '', karma and rebirth a ...

- and is the longest sutta of the

Pāli Canon The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from the Tamrashatiya school. During th ...

. Because of its attention to detail, it has been resorted to as the principal source of reference in most standard accounts of the Buddha's death.

Content

The sutta begins a few days before the rainy retreat when Vassakara, the minister, visited the Buddha in

Rajgir Rajgir, meaning "The City of Kings," is a historic town in the district of Nalanda in Bihar, India. As the ancient seat and capital of the Haryanka dynasty, the Pradyota dynasty, the Brihadratha dynasty and the Mauryan Empire, as well as the d ...

on the initiative of Ajātasattu, a king of the

Haryanka dynasty The Haryanka dynasty was the third ruling dynasty of Magadha, an empire of ancient India, which succeeded the Pradyota dynasty and Barhadratha dynasty. Initially, the capital was Rajagriha. Later, it was shifted to Pataliputra, near the pres ...

Magadha Magadha was a region and one of the sixteen sa, script=Latn, Mahajanapadas, label=none, lit=Great Kingdoms of the Second Urbanization (600–200 BCE) in what is now south Bihar (before expansion) at the eastern Ganges Plain. Magadha was ruled ...

. The narrative continues beyond the three months of the rainy retreat and records the passing away of the Buddha, his cremation and the division of relics finally ending with the erection of eight

cetiya upright=1.25, Phra Pathom Chedi, one of the biggest Chedis in Thailand; in Thai, the term Chedi (cetiya) is used interchangeably with the term Stupa Cetiya, "reminders" or "memorials" (Sanskrit ''caitya''), are objects and places used by Buddhi ...

s or monuments enshrining the relics of the Buddha. This shows the Indian origin of Buddhist funeral customs.

Versions

There are numerous versions of the ''Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta''. Among them, the Pali version is of an early date in respect of language and contents. The ''Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta'' is of utmost historical and cultural value and therefore it has become a sourcebook for students of Buddhism, Buddha biography and history of Buddhist thought and literature. Other versions of the text exist in Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese.

Date of Composition

On the basis of

philological Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as t ...

evidence, Indologist and Pali expert

Oskar von Hinüber Oskar von Hinüber (born 18 February 1939 in Hanover) is a German Indologist. He joined the German Navy after leaving high school, and holds the rank of Commander as a reservist. From 1960 to 1966 he studied at University of Tübingen, University ...

says that some of the Pali suttas have retained very archaic place-names, syntax, and historical data from close to the Buddha's lifetime, including the ''Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta''. Hinüber proposes a composition date of no later than 350-320 BCE for this text, which would allow for a "true historical memory" of the events approximately 60 years prior if the short chronology for the Buddha's lifetime is accepted (but also reminds us that such a text was originally intended more as

hagiography A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies migh ...

than as an exact historical record of events).''see also'':

Michael Witzel Michael Witzel (born July 18, 1943) is a German-American philologist, comparative mythologist and Indologist. Witzel is the Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University and the editor of the Harvard Oriental Series (volumes 50–80). Witze ...

, (2009)
"Moving Targets? Texts, language, archaeology and history in the Late Vedic and early Buddhist periods."
in ''Indo-Iranian Journal'' 52(2-3): 287-310. The contents of narratives about the

First Buddhist Council __NOTOC__ The First Buddhist council was a gathering of senior monks of the Buddhist order convened just after Gautama Buddha's death, which according to Buddhist tradition was c. 483 BCE, though most modern scholars place it around 400 BCE. T ...

follow closely the narrative presented in the ''Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta'', leading scholars like Louis Finot and

Erich Frauwallner Erich Frauwallner (December 28, 1898 – July 5, 1974) was an Austrian professor, a pioneer in the field of Buddhist studies.Walter Slaje: Rezensionen, Stuchlik, Jakob: Der arische Ansatz. Erich Frauwallner und der Nationalsozialismus, Asiatisc ...

to conclude that they originally formed a single continuous narrative. These narratives of the First Council and found in part or in whole in all six extant

Vinaya The Vinaya (Pali & Sanskrit: विनय) is the division of the Buddhist canon ('' Tripitaka'') containing the rules and procedures that govern the Buddhist Sangha (community of like-minded ''sramanas''). Three parallel Vinaya traditions remai ...

traditions, whose organization and basic contents are believed by many scholars to stem from before the earliest schisms in the Buddhist Sangha. In some versions, the contents of the Sutta are included before the narrative of the First Council that ends the Skandhaka section of the Vinaya Pitakas. In other cases, the sutta narrative and the council narrative are divided between the Sutta Pitaka and Vinaya Pitaka.

References

Bibliography

* * Rhys Davids, T. W. and C. A. F. trans. (1910)
''Dialogues of the Buddha'', part II
Oxford University Press, pp. 78–191. * von Hinüber, Oskar (2009)
Cremated like a King: The Funeral of the Buddha within the Ancient Indian Cultural Context
Journal of the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies 13, 33-66 * Walshe, Maurice, trans. (1987). “Mahaparinibbana Sutta: The Great Passing.” In Thus Have I Heard: The Long Discourses of the Buddha. London: Wisdom Publications.

External links

Pali text
Mahāparinibbānasutta in the original Pali
SuttaCentral Translations
The Great Discourse on the Buddha's Extinguishment
translation by Bhikkhu Sujato
The Discourse about the Great Emancipation
translation by Bhikkhu Ānandajoti

o
PDF
translated from the Pali by Sister Vajira & Francis Story Essays

article by Louis Finot, published in the "Indian Historical Quarterly" (8:2, 1932 June 1, pp. 241–46), concerning the Mahaparinibbana Sutta and a related text.
"Did Buddha die of mesenteric infarction?"
by Ven. Dr. Mettanando Bhikkhu, a Thai monk and former medical doctor, published in the "Bangkok Post" (2000 May 17). {{Gautama Buddha Digha Nikaya