Mahâ-Parinibbâna-Suttanta: The Book of the Great Decease

p. 92 25.[1] 'What should be done, Lord, with the remains of the Tathâgata?' 'As men treat the remains of a king of kings, so, Ânanda, should they treat the remains of a Tathâgata.' 'And how, Lord, do they treat the remains of a king of kings[2]?' 26. 'They wrap the body of a king of kings, Ânanda, in a new cloth. When that is done they wrap it in carded cotton wool[3]. When that is done they wrap it in a new cloth,--and so on till they have wrapped the body in five hundred successive layers of both kinds. Then they place the body in an oil vessel of iron[4], and cover that close up with another [1. This conversation occurs also below (VI, 33), and the older tradition probably had it only in that connection. 2. King of kings is an inadequate rendering of Kakkavatti Râgâ. It is a king whose power no other king can dispute, who is the acknowledged overlord in India. The idea can scarcely have existed before Kandragupta, the first Kakravarti, had raised himself to power. This passage, therefore, is a guide to the date at which the Mahâ-parinibbâna Sutta assumed its present form. 3. 'Vihatena kappâsenâ ti suphotitena kappâsenâ: Kâsika-vattham hi sukhumattâ telam na ganhati, tasmâ vihatena kappâsenâ ti âha. 'As Benâres cloth, by reason of its fineness of texture, does not take the oil, he therefore says, "with vihata cotton wool," that is, with cotton wool that has been well forced asunder.' That photita is here the participle of the causal verb, and not of the simple verb, follows of necessity from its being used as an explanation of vihata, 'torn to pieces.' The technical use of the word, as applied to cotton wool, has only been found in this passage. It usually means 'torn with grief.'