The Discourse about the Great Emancipation

The Fifth Chapter for Recitation
After hearing this from venerable Ānanda, the Mallas, the sons of the
Mallas, the daughters-in-law of the Mallas, and the wives of the Mallas
became miserable, depressed, with their minds given over to suffering.
Some, having dishevelled hair, were weeping, throwing up their arms,
falling down (as though) cut down, rolling backwards and forwards as
though with their feet cut off, they were crying: “Too quickly the
Gracious One will attain Final Emancipation, too quickly the
Fortunate One will attain Final Emancipation, too quickly the
Visionary in the world will disappear!”
Then the Mallas, the sons of the Mallas, the daughters-in-law of the
Mallas, and the wives of the Mallas, miserable, depressed, with their
minds given over to suffering, approached the Mallas' Sal Wood at
Upavattana, and approached venerable Ānanda.
Then this occurred to venerable Ānanda: “If I make the Mallas of
Kusinārā worship the Gracious One one by one before the Gracious
One has been worshipped by the Mallas of Kusinārā the night will
end. 161 Now what if I, having segregated the Mallas family by family,
made them worship the Gracious One, (saying): ‘A Malla named so and
so, together with his children, wife, dependents, and councillors
worships the Gracious One's feet with his head’?”
161 Literally: the night will become bright.
161