A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s3.t1.19.3

v2.c19.s3.t1.19.3

Hold steadfastly to the religion as your light, hold steadfastly to the religion as your refuge!” Equal antiquity and originality can most probably be claimed for the passage in the fifth section, in which we read how Ānanda, no longer able to control his grief at the approaching departure of the Master, goes out and stands weeping, leaning against the doorpost, whereupon the Buddha has him called back, and tells him the most kindly words of consolation and of recognition of his loving attachment. The verses, too, which are scattered in the Sutta, bear the stamp of the greatest antiquity. Some of them contain significant sayings of the Buddha and his disciples, and others effectively emphasize the most striking events of the narrative.[^1) While, in all these passages, Buddha speaks entirely as man to man, we see him, in other parts of the same text, performing miracles like a demigod or a magician; indeed, he boasts of his magic power, by means of which he could, if he only desired it, prolong his life till the end of an age of the world, and reproaches Ānanda because the latter had not understood the hint at the given time and implored him, Buddha, to live on (III, 34-47). Buddha's resolve to die causes an earthquake, and he avails himself of the opportunity to enumerate the eight causes of an earthquake, and to follow it up by the enumeration of other things, likewise eight in number (III, 11-33).