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

'Even so, Lord,' said the venerable Ânanda, in assent, to the Blessed One; and he robed himself, and taking his bowl[2], entered into Kusinârâ attended by another member of the order. [1. This enumeration is found also at Gâtaka, p. 3, only that the conch shell is added there-wrongly, for that makes the number of cries eleven. The Mahâ-Sudassana Sutta has in the corresponding passage, like the Burmese MS. noted here by Childers, conch instead of cymbal. My MS. reads cymbal here. 2. Nivâsetvâ patta-kîvaram âdâya atta-dutiyo. Buddhaghosa has, naturally enough, no comment on this oft-recurring phrase. It cannot be meant that he put on only his under-garments, and carried his upper robe with him; for then his shoulders would have been bare; and it is quite against the rules to go into a village without all the robes having been put carefully on (Pâtimokkha, Sekhiya 1-3). I do not even understand how Ânanda, with due regard to the rules of the brotherhood (see Pâtimokkha, Nisaggiya 21-29), could have had a spare robe then with him. And patta-kîvaram can scarcely mean simply 'bowl-robe,' referring to the length of cotton cloth in which the bowl was carried over the shoulder ('Buddhist Birth Stories,' p. 71). 'With both his under-garments on, he entered Kusinârâ duly bowled and robed' may be impossible English, but it probably correctly catches the {footnote p. 102} idea involved, though of course one (at least) of the under-cloths had been put on long before. See p. 122. A Thera never goes about in public alone, he is always accompanied by a Sâmanera.]