Now at that time Venerable Mahākassapa was traveling along the road from Pāvā to Kusinārā together with a large Saṅgha of around five hundred mendicants. Then he left the road and sat at the root of a tree.

Now at that time a certain ājīvaka ascetic had picked up a Flame Tree flower in Kusinārā and was traveling along the road to Pāvā. Mahākassapa saw him coming off in the distance and said to him, “Reverend, might you know about our Teacher?”

“Yes, reverend. Seven days ago the ascetic Gotama became fully extinguished. From there I picked up this Flame Tree flower.” Some of the mendicants there, with arms raised, falling down like their feet were chopped off, rolling back and forth, lamented, “Too soon the Blessed One has become fully extinguished! Too soon the Holy One has become fully extinguished! Too soon the seer has vanished from the world!” But the mendicants who were free of desire endured, mindful and aware, thinking, “Conditions are impermanent. How could it possibly be otherwise?”

Now at that time a monk named Subhadda, who had gone forth when old, was sitting in that assembly. He said to those mendicants, “Enough, reverends, do not grieve or lament. We’re well rid of that Great Ascetic harassing us: ‘This is allowable for you; this is not allowable for you.’ Well, now we shall do what we want and not do what we don’t want.”

Then Venerable Mahākassapa addressed the mendicants, “Enough, reverends, do not grieve or lament. Did the Buddha not prepare us for this when he explained that we must be parted and separated from all we hold dear and beloved? How could it possibly be so that what is born, created, conditioned, and liable to fall apart should not fall apart, even the Realized One’s body?”

Now at that time four of the leading Mallas, having bathed their heads and dressed in unworn clothes, said, “We shall light the Buddha’s funeral pyre.” But they were unable to do so.

The Mallas said to Anuruddha, “What is the cause, Venerable Anuruddha, what is the reason why these four Mallian leaders are unable to light the Buddha’s funeral pyre?”

“Vāseṭṭhas, the deities have a different plan.”

“But sir, what is the deities’ plan?”

“The deities’ plan is this: Venerable Mahākassapa is traveling along the road from Pāvā to Kusinārā together with a large Saṅgha of around five hundred mendicants. The Buddha’s funeral pyre shall not burn until he bows with his head at the Buddha’s feet.”

“Sir, let it be as the deities plan.”

Then Venerable Mahākassapa came to the Mallian shrine named Makuṭabandhana at Kusinārā and approached the Buddha’s funeral pyre. Arranging his robe over one shoulder and raising his joined palms, he respectfully circled the Buddha three times, keeping him on his right, and bowed with his head to the Buddha’s feet. And the five hundred mendicants did likewise. And when Mahākassapa and the five hundred mendicants bowed the Buddha’s funeral pyre burst into flames all by itself.

And when the Buddha’s corpse was cremated no ash or soot was found from outer or inner skin, flesh, sinews, or synovial fluid. Only the relics remained. It’s like when ghee or oil blaze and burn, and neither ashes nor soot are found. In the same way, when the Buddha’s corpse was cremated no ash or soot was found from outer or inner skin, flesh, sinews, or synovial fluid. Only the relics remained. And of those five hundred pairs of garments only two were not burnt: the innermost and the outermost. But when the Buddha’s corpse was consumed the funeral pyre was extinguished by a stream of water that appeared in the sky, by water dripping from the sal trees, and by the Mallas’ fragrant water.

Then the Mallas made a cage of spears for the Buddha’s relics in the meeting hall and surrounded it with a buttress of bows. For seven days they honored, respected, revered, and venerated them with dance and song and music and garlands and fragrances.