On an occasion of great ceremony, ritual and colour, Calcutta fell silent for the final tribute to the woman known as Mother. It was unique in part because state funerals are normally reserved for prime ministers and presidents. But it was also different because it honoured a Catholic in a country with intense religious sensitivities which is less than 1 per cent Christian.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who received about 80 international awards for her work with the marginalised, took her final journey to the chapel of the headquarters of the order she founded, the Mother House, where she was buried at a private ceremony.
The funeral took place with absolute precision. The only delay came after the Requiem Mass at the indoor Netaji stadium, when more than 50 international dignitaries, including the Minister for Defence, Mr Andrews, placed wreaths before the casket.
The formalities began when soldiers of the Gurkha and Rajput regiments stood to attention at 9 a.m. on Saturday as the cortege started its two-mile journey through Calcutta's streets.
On the road from St Thomas's church, where the 87-year-old nun had lain in state, crowds gathered behind the wooden barricades. Soldiers resplendent in white uniforms and red plumed turbans played the bagpipes as the funeral procession began.
Flanked by outriders and led by a caravan of military jeeps, Mother Teresa's white open casket was draped in the Indian tricolour with its trademark spinning wheel.
It lay on the gun carriage used for the funerals of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and that of the charismatic leader, Mahatma Gandhi. The casket was decorated with garlands and wreaths of white lilies and lotus flowers - the front wreath shaped as a cross.
Chief mourners included Mother Teresa's niece Ms Agi Boxajhiu, her grand-nephew, Maximilian, and her successor, Sister Nirmala. They led cars and buses with hundreds of the order's nuns and residents of the orphanages and homes she set up for the dying, those with leprosy, and other physical and mental disabilities.
After a week of mourning there were few outward signs of grief but people showered flower petals on to the cortege from the streets and from the balconies of crumbling apartment blocks.
Once the procession had passed, the shutters went up on several small shops although larger premises remained closed.
Hundreds of people ran after the cortege which moved quickly through the chaotic streets of the densely populated city. There were crowds in their thousands in some areas, but in others the numbers were sparse.
At one point, people surged through a cordon and surrounded the hearse but was forced back by police with bamboo canes and mounted police.
The atmosphere became quieter once again at the Netaji stadium, where royalty, religious leaders, international dignitaries and hundreds of the order's nuns took part in the ceremony.
The Mass was three hours long, formal and in parts touching. Religious leaders paid homage and Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's Secretary of State and chief celebrant, read a message from the Pope who said Mother Teresa had shown that "holiness, goodness and love are still recognised".
He rebuked critics who said she did not do enough to fight the causes of poverty. "The hungry cannot wait for the world to come up with the perfect answer. They need effective solidarity - the dying, the handicapped, the defenceless unborn."
Her successor at the helm of the Missionaries of Charity, Sister Nirmala, thanked the Indian government for the honour of a state funeral and said "Mother will accept this in the name of the poor." She asked for prayers so that "we can be steadfast in our determination to serve the poor, the sick, the dying, the leper and the hungry".
Archbishop Henry d'Souza of Calcutta said that with Mother Teresa's death one chapter had ended but another had begun.
A choir of the order's nuns sang as the cortege moved out of the stadium, past the park where thousands had gathered.
As the procession moved towards the Mother House on AJC Bose road, the atmosphere intensified as a sea of faces, in some parts 15 deep, pressed behind the bamboo barricades to get a last glimpse of the diminutive nun.
Despite a downpour, people stood on walls or crammed the balconies of apartment blocks that looked as if they would collapse at any moment.
As the procession moved towards the Mother House there were calls and shouts of "Mother Teresa, Mother, Mother". Some pressed their hands together in the Hindu greeting. At a junction near the Mother House the crowd surged forward and were forced back by police.
Once the cortege stopped, there was silence as the pall bearers brought the casket out and carried it towards the dark narrow laneway at the side entrance of the house. Cardinals and bishops, priests and nuns, swarmed behind the casket as it was carried into the small chapel for burial.
Outside the crowd stood silently and when the Nepali regiment honour guard fired a volley of shots it was the signal that the Saint of the Gutter had been buried.