Buddhologist André Bareau (1921–1993) regarded the episode of Mahākāśyapa learning of the Buddha's "parinirvāṇa" and his lighting of the pyre as an embellishment that was inserted by authors of monastic discipline over the fifth, fourth and third centuries BCE, to emphasize the person of Mahākāśyapa. Bareau reasoned that Mahākāśyapa did not attend the Buddha's cremation in the original version, and that Mahākāśyapa could have taken a route of just a few hours via Pāva to Kuśinagara. Regardless, the story of the delay and of Mahākāśyapa eventually lighting the funeral pyre indicates how much Mahākāśyapa was respected, as he was regarded as the most important heir to the Buddha's dispensation.