On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c18.s3.3

v2.c18.s3.3

At the side of this monastery was a place with traces of their sitting and walking for exercise left by the Four Past Buddhas. Beside this was an Asoka tope on the spot where were traces left by the Buddha when on his way to Magadha he stopped here to look back at Vaiśālī. From the Śvetapur Monastery a journey of above 30 *li* south-east brought the pilgrim, he tells us, to a place on the Ganges famed as the scene of Ānanda's parinirvāṇa. Here were two topes, one on the north and one on the south side of the river, to mark the spots at which Ānanda, on going into extinction, gave one half of his bodily relics to Magadha and the other half to Vesālī. Yuan-chuang describes Ananda as the Julai's cousin, one who heard much and retained all he heard, as of wide research and great application, and the successor of Mahākāśyapa as head of the Buddhist Church. He then relates the incidents connected with the parinirvāṇa of Ānanda.