About forty-five years elapsed between Gautama’s attainment of Buddhahood and his death. During that period he continued teaching and itinerating with his disciples; only going ‘into retreat’ during the rains. A list of 45 places of residence is given. He seems to have resided oftenest at Ṡrāvastī (p. 21) in the monastery Jetavana given by Anātha-piṇḍika; but the whole region between Ṡrāvastī and Rāja-gṛiha (p. 29), for nearly 300 miles, was the scene of his itineration. Favourite resorts near Rāja-gṛiha were the ‘Vulture-peak’ and Bambu-grove (Veḷu-vana); but continual itineration was one chief means of propagating Buddhism. It is said that his death occurred at Kuṡi-nagara[16] (Kusinārā), a town about eighty miles east of Kapila-vastu—the place of his birth—when he was eighty years of age, and probably about the year 420 B.C.[17] The story is that Gautama died from eating too much pork (or dried boar’s flesh[18]). As this is somewhat derogatory to his dignity it is not likely to have been fabricated. A fabrication, too, would scarcely make him guilty of the inconsistency of saying ‘Kill no living thing,’ and yet setting an example of eating flesh-meat. These were his words when he felt his end near:— ‘O Ānanda, I am now grown old, and full of years, and my journey is drawing to its close; I have reached eighty years—my sum of days—and just as a worn-out cart can only with much care be made to move along, so my body can only be kept going with difficulty. It is only when I become plunged in meditation that my body is at ease. In future be ye to yourselves your own light, your own refuge; seek no other refuge. Hold fast to the truth as your lamp. Hold fast to the truth as your refuge; look not to any one but yourselves as a refuge’ (Mahā-parinibbāna-sutta II. 32, 33). Afterwards he gave a summary of every monk’s duties, thus:—‘Which then, O monks, are the truths (=the seven jewels, p. 127) it behoves you to spread abroad, out of pity for the world, for the good of gods and men? They are: 1. the four earnest reflections (Smṛiti, Sati-paṭṭhāna, on the impurities of the body, on the impermanence of the sensations, of the thoughts, of the conditions of existence, p. 127); 2. the four right exertions (Sammappadhāna, viz. to prevent demerit from arising, get rid of it when arisen, produce merit, increase it); 3. the four paths to supernatural power (Iddhi-pāda, viz. will, effort, thought, intense thought); 4. the five forces (Pañća-bala, viz. faith, energy, recollection, self-concentration, reason); 5. the proper use of the five organs of sense; 6. the seven ‘limbs’ of knowledge (Bodhy-aṅga, viz. recollection, investigation, energy, joy, serenity, concentration of mind, equanimity); 7. the noble ‘eightfold path’ (p. 44). See Mahā-parinibbāna III. 65.