For twenty-four years, we are told, Buddha wandered from one place to another, to preach his doctrine, to strengthen his disciples in their faith, to arrange their condition, and in the rainy season to show to the initiated the way to the highest liberation, to death without regeneration. According to the legends of the Northern Buddhists, he saw towards the end of his days the overthrow of his ancestral city, and the defeat of his adherents. The Çakyas of Kapilavastu are said to have become odious to Virudhaka (Kshudraka in the Vishnu-Purana), the successor of king Prasenajit on the throne of the Koçalas. He marched against them with his army; obtained possession of the city of Kapilavastu, and caused the inhabitants to be massacred. Buddha is said to have heard the noise of the conquest, and the cry of the dying. When the king of the Koçalas had marched away with his army, Buddha, we are told, wandered in the night through the ruined corpse-strewn streets of his home. In the pleasure-garden of his father's palace, where he had played as a boy, lay maidens with hands and feet cut off, of whom some were still alive; Buddha gave them his sympathy and comforted them. The massacre of Kapilavastu, the slaughter of the Çakyas, if it took place at all, cannot have been complete, for at a later time the race is mentioned as existing and active. In the eightieth year of his life Buddha is said to have visited Rajagriha and Nalanda in the land of Magadha; afterwards he crossed the Ganges, and announced to his disciples in Vaiçali, the metropolis of the tribe of the Vrijis (p. 338), that he should die in three months. He exhorted them to redoubled zeal, begged them, when he was no more, to collect his commands, and preach them to the world. Accompanied by his pupils Ananda and Anuruddha he then set out to the north, to the land of the Mallas, and Kuçinagara, where in former days he had laid aside the royal dress and assumed the condition of a mendicant. Falling sick on the way, he came exhausted into the neighbourhood of Kuçinagara, where Ananda prepared a bed for him in a grove. Here he said farewell, sank into meditation, and died with the words "Nothing continues," never to be born again. At Ananda's suggestion the Mallas buried the dead Enlightened with the burial of a king. After preparations lasting through seven days the corpse was placed in a golden coffin, carried in solemn procession before the eastern gate of Kuçinagara, and laid on a wooden pyre. The ashes were placed in a golden urn, and for seven days festivals were held in honour of the "compassionate Buddha, the man free from stain" (543 B.C.).[481] FOOTNOTES: [421] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 146. [422] Köppen, "Religion des Buddha," s. 84. Kapilavastu means habitation of Kapila. It was the philosophy of Kapila which lay at the base of the teaching of Buddha.