Remarkable Death of Ânanda
Four yojanas on from this place to the east brought the travellers to the confluence of the five rivers. When Ânanda was going from Magadha to Vaisâlî, wishing his pari-nirvâna to take place there, the devas informed king Ajâtasatru [1] of it, and the king immediately pursued him, in his own grand carriage, with a body of soldiers, and had reached the river. On the other hand, the Lichchhavis of Vaisâlî had heard that Ânanda was coming to their city, and they on their part came to meet him. In this way, they all arrived together at the river, and Ânanda considered that, if he went forward, king Ajâtasatru would be very angry, while, if he went back, the Lichchhavis would resent his conduct. He thereupon in the very middle of the river burnt his body in a fiery ecstasy of Samâdhi [2], and his pari-nirvâna was attained. He divided his body into two parts, leaving one part on each bank; so that each of the two kings got one part as a sacred relic, and took it back to his own capital, and there raised a tope over it.
[Footnote 1: He was the son of king Bimbisâra, who was one of the first royal converts to Buddhism. Ajasat murdered his father, or at least wrought his death; and was at first opposed to Sakyamuni, and a favorer of Devadotta. When converted, he became famous for his liberality in almsgiving.]
[Footnote 2: "Samâdhi," says Eitel, "signifies the highest pitch of abstract, ecstatic meditation; a state of absolute indifference to all influences from within or without; a state of torpor of both the material and spiritual forces of vitality; a sort of terrestrial Nirvâna, consistently culminating in total destruction of life."]