..续本文上一页e sign of mourning), they followed the Elder lamenting and weeping.

　　The Venerable Sariputta then admonished the crowd, saying: "This is a road that none can avoid," and asked them to return. And to the monks who had accompanied him, he said: "You may turn back now! Do not neglect the Master!"

　　Thus he made them go back, and with only his own group of disciples, he continued on his way. Yet still some of the people followed him, lamenting. "Formerly our Venerable went on journeys and returned. But this is a journey without return!" To them the Elder said: "Be heedful, friends! Of such nature, indeed, are all things that are formed and conditioned!" And he made them turn back.

　　During his journey the Venerable Sariputta spent one night wherever he stopped, and thus for one week he favored many people with a last sight of him. Reaching Nalaka village in the evening, he stopped near a banyan tree at the village gate. It happened that at the time a nephew of the elder, Uparevata by name, had gone outside the village and there he saw the Venerable Sariputta. He approached the elder, saluted him, and remained standing.

　　The Elder asked him: "Is your grand-aunt at home

　　" "Yes, venerable sir," he replied. "Then go and announce our coming," said the Elder. "And if she asks why I have come, tell her that I shall stay in the village for one day, and ask her to prepare my birth chamber and provide lodgings for five hundred bhikkhus."

　　Uparevata went to his grand-aunt and said: "Grandaunt, my uncle has come."

　　"Where is he now

　　" she asked.

　　"At the village gate."

　　"Is he alone, or has someone else come with him

　　"

　　"He has come with five hundred bhikkhus."

　　And when she asked him, "Why has he come

　　" he gave her the message the elder had entrusted to him. Then she thought: "Why does he ask me to provide lodgings for so many

　　 After becoming a monk in his youth, does he want to be a layman again in his old age

　　" But she arranged the birth chamber for the Elder and lodgings for the bhikkhus, had torches lit and then sent for the Elder.

　　The Venerable Sariputta then, accompanied by the bhikkhus, went up to the terrace of the house and entered his birth chamber. After seating himself, he asked the bhikkhus to go to their quarters. They had hardly left, when a grave illness, dysentery, fell upon the Elder, and he felt severe pains. When one pail was brought in, another was carried out. The brahman lady thought: "The news of my son is not good," and she stood leaning by the door of her own room.

　　And then it happened, the text tells us, that the Four Great Divine Kings asked themselves: "Where may he now be dwelling, the Marshal of the Law

　　" And they perceived that he was at Nalaka, in his birth chamber, lying on the bed of his Final Passing Away. "Let us go for a last sight of him," they said.

　　When they reached the birth chamber, they saluted the Elder and remained standing.

　　"Who are you

　　" asked the Elder.

　　"We are the Great Divine Kings, venerable sir."

　　"Why have you come

　　"

　　"We want to attend on you during your illness."

　　"Let it be!" said the Venerable Sariputta. "There is an attendant here. You may go."

　　When they had left, there came in the same manner Sakka the king of the gods, and after him, Maha Brahma, and all of them the elder dismissed in the same way.

　　The brahman lady, seeing the coming and going of these deities, asked herself: "Who could they have been, who came and paid homage to my son, and then left

　　" And she went to the door of the elder”s room and asked the Venerable Cunda for news about the Elder”s condition. Cunda conveyed the inquiry to the Elder, telling him: "The Great Upasika (lay devotee) has come."

　　The Venerable Sariputta asked her: "Why have you come at this unusual hour

　　"

　　"To see you, dear," she replied. "Tell me, w…

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