The Buddha and Management of His Life and Death in the Mahaparinibbanasutta

Abstract

          This article is written up to present a study of the Buddha’s management of life and death in the Mahaparinibbanasutta of Buddhism, by implementing an analysis, and a synthesis, of the points from the Mahaparinibbanasutta to join them together as the story and concept, and then to make an analytical conclusion in accordance with the concept of management.

          The results of study found that, in the Mahaparinibbanasutta, the Buddha has had a management of His Life and death in two periods, that is, 1) the period after denying the evil one’s request of the Buddha to pass away, in which the Buddha applied a concept of management to His life as the Teacher of Buddhism, and 2) the period after accepting the evil one’s request that He would pass away in next three months, in which the Buddha managed His death as “dying before death” for getting ready to die physically, dying without worrying, and dying without leaving any problems behind, by telling and ordering principles and guidelines of practice to let the four assemblies of Buddhists bring the death (dead body) of the Buddha to manage after His passing away onwards.