To Light a Thousand Lamps - The Theosophical Society

The Christian Message / 95
resolve he had earlier made had been fulfilled. At that time
the Tathāgata had told Māra he would not die until the
brethren and sisters and lay-disciples of both sexes shall have
become ‘‘wise and well-trained, ready and learned, ...
[and] when others start vain doctrine, shall be able by
the truth to vanquish and refute it, and so to spread the
wonder-working truth abroad!’’* Since Ānanda had made
no call upon the Buddha to live on, the Tathāgata said to
Māra: ‘‘make thyself happy, the final extinction of the
Tathāgata shall take place before long. At the end of three
months from this time the Tathāgata will die!’’ Whereupon
there ‘‘arose a mighty earthquake, awful and terrible, and
the thunders of heaven burst forth’’† — not unlike what
occurred during the ‘‘crucifixion’’ of Jesus when, from the
sixth to the ninth hour darkness was upon the land, and
after he had given up his spirit ‘‘the veil of the temple was
rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did
quake ...’’ (Matthew 27:51).
Only later, when Ānanda had questioned the Buddha
about the ‘‘mighty earthquake,’’ did his disciple, in a flash,
wake up. Only then, at the sudden realization that his beloved
friend and mentor was soon to leave them, did Ānanda
urge the Blessed One to live on through the kalpa ‘‘for
the good and the happiness of the great multitudes.’’ Three
times he pleaded thus. The reply was inevitable: ‘‘Enough
now, Ānanda, beseech not the Tathāgata! The time for
making such request is past.’’‡ Had Ānanda bestirred him-
*Ibid., ch. 3, §7, p. 43.
†Ibid., ch. 3, §§9‒10, p. 44.
‡Ibid., ch. 3, §§49‒50, p. 54.