The end had probably been drawing on for some time; strange to say, it was hastened by a meal of dried boar's flesh, of which he partook in the house of Chanda, the blacksmith--a proof that abstinence from flesh cannot have been an integral portion of the early rules of Buddhism. His death has been very touchingly described in the "Sutra of the Great Decease," which gives us also

his last words to his disciples, as well as the account of his obsequies. The extent of his influence and the high esteem in which he was held throughout Central Asia are shown by the eagerness with which the surrounding tribes craved for a portion of his cremated bones for purposes of reverence and adoration.

The evidence to hand seems to show that it was the strong ruling hand of the master that alone was able to preserve the unity of the large number of his disciples and followers in his later years. The Tathagata had been attended during his last moments by the well-beloved Ananda, the disciple who had for some time been acting as his private secretary and coadjutor; Kas'yapa, the most weighty of all the Sthaviras, or Seniors, did not arrive in time to see his master again in life. When a Council was summoned at Rajagriha soon after the interment, it was Kas'yapa who took the chair, whilst Ananda, in spite of his intimate relations with the master, found himself at first excluded altogether (Kern, "Buddhism," vol. ii. p. 239). There is a northern tradition of a rival Council held outside the Grotto, whilst the official Council within was pursuing its labours. Other traditions (see Kern, l.c.)

make the exclusion of Ananda from the official Council to have been but temporary, but the fact remains that the successions of Patriarchs in north and south were from the very beginning different. Both successions begin with Kas'yapa, but both assign to him only a short tenure of office. He was an old man, older than S'akyamuni, and most probably died soon after his master. After Kas'yapa, we have, in the south, Upali the Barber, who recited the Vinaya-pitakam; then Dasaka, Sonaka, Siggava, and Chandavajji, and Tishya Maudgalyayaniputra, who is said to have presided over As'oka's Council. In the north, during the same period, we get Ananda, the coadjutor of Buddha and the reciter of the Sutra-pitakam; Madhyantika, the Apostle of Kashmir; S'anavas'as, who was present at the Second Council, Upagupta, who acted as guide to As'oka when that monarch, in the interval between his conversion and his ordination to the priesthood, made a tour of the holy places; and finally Dhitika, who, during the period of missionary fervour which followed the Third Council under As'oka (possibly even independently of that Council's authority), went into Turkestan and there