Legend of Hariti and Panchika
Hariti, a demon or the Yakshi, gave birth to five hundred children. In her former incarnation, she
was the personification of the most dreaded disease, smallpox, and thus had made a vow to
devour all the infants of Rajagirah. Every day she ate some infants until the Buddha came to
know of the menace. In orderto teach her a lesson, he hid one of her beloved children under his
alm bowl. She searched for her child from place to place, and found it when she reached the
Buddha. She was very angry with the Buddha for his action. In answer to her accusations, the
Buddha was amazed that she had been so perturbed about one of her five hundred children. How
much more perturbed and grieved the parents would have been who had only one or two children
whom she had devoured because of her cruel vow. Touched by these words,
Hariti was ashamed of her deed, and was soon converted, but in her anxiety for her own children
she asked the Buddha how they would be able to continue to exist in the future. The Buddha told
her that she should not worry and promised that in every monastery there would be sufficient
food available for her offsprings. That is why the image of Hariti is found in all the Buddhist
monasteries, holding an infant in her arms and with three or five children around her knees. She
has thus become the goddess of fertility in the Buddhist cult. Panchika was also a semi-divine
and the warlord of the Yakshas. In addition to his military functions, he is depicted having a
lance in his hand. He was the husband of Hariti, thus seated with her Lahore Museum.
MAHAPARINIRVANA
Death of the Buddha
At an advance age of about eighty years or so, the Buddha to-gether with a sizeable group of his
mendicant-brothers went to the other side of the river Hirannavati to Kusinagara bend. Reaching
the Sal-tree grove there, he instructed the venerable Ananda and said, „Pray, Ananda, arrange for
me the platform with its head to the north between the twin Sal-tree; I am tired, Ananda, will lie
down„. Then the blessed one attained the first trance. Emerging from the first trance, he attained
the second trance, and continued so on up to the fourth trance. Emerging from the fourth trance,
the Buddha breathed his last at Kusinagara, a place in the Utter Pardesh on the 13th October, 483
B.C.
The Cremation of the Buddha
After the death, the question of the disposal of his body was raised. Ananda, a close disciple of
the Buddha is said to have asked him during the last hour what his wish was in regard to the
disposal of his body, and he was instructed to leave the matter to the direction of the leading
laymen of the neighborhood. Thus the neighboring chiefs, the Mallas (Chieftans of Kushnagara)
were charged with the conduct of the funeral ceremonies. The body was wrapped in five hundred
pieces of cloth and placed in a coffin which was placed in receptacles. The body was cremated.
Their relics were then divided into eight portions under the supervision o the Branhan Drona,
then distributed among the eight communities whose claims the Mallas respected, and who built
the stupas to enshrine the relics. However, none of these eight stupas are believed to exist now as
they were opened and the relics were collected and further divided for
enshrinement in new stupas during the reign of Asoka in the 3rd century B.C. Peshawar
Museum.