The Discourse about the Great Emancipation

The Sixth Chapter for Recitation
the funeral pyre three times, and uncovering the feet he worshipped
the Gracious One's feet with his head. 193
Also five-hundred monks, after arranging their robes on one shoulder,
extending (their hands) in respectful salutation, and circumambulating
the funeral pyre three times, worshipped the Gracious One's feet with
their heads. After (the Gracious One's feet) had been worshipped by
venerable Mahākassapa and by five-hundred monks the funeral pyre
caught fire by itself.
Now while the Gracious One's body was burning, of the outer skin, the
inner skin, the flesh, the sinews, the synovial fluid, neither charcoal
was evident, nor was ash of the body left over. Just as while ghee or
oil is burning there is no charcoal and no ash evident, so when the
Gracious One's body was burning, of the outer skin, the inner skin, the
flesh, the sinews, the synovial fluid, neither charcoal was evident, nor
was ash of the body left over. Only two of those five-hundred pairs of
clothes were not consumed, that on the inside and that on the outside.
When the Gracious One's body was burnt a shower of water appeared
in the sky, and the Gracious One's funeral pyre was extinguished. Also
193 The Commentary takes this a bit more literally than necessary, and says
that Ven. Mahākassapa attained fourth jhāna and made a determination
that the Buddha's feet should break through their five hundred layers of
wrapping, before he worshipped them.
189