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60
Mahāvīra and Buddha
as our basis, and in 538 B.C., if we prefer the Ceylonese epoch. The date 478 B. C. would almost coincide with that to which the testimony of Hemacandra leads us and place the accession of Candragupta Maurya in 323 B.C. which cannot be far from truth. But the result in respect of Mahāvīra himself is at variance with the clear evidence of the Buddhist canonical texts, which make the Buddha survive his Jñātrika rival. Tha Jain statement that their Tirthařkara dies some sixteen years after the accession of Koņika (Ajātaśatru) can be reconciled with the Buddhist tradition about the death of the same teacher before the eighth year of Ajātaśatru, if we assume that the Jain, who refer to Konika as the ruler of Campā, begun their reckoning from the accession of the prince to the Viceregal throne of Campa while the Buddhist make the accession of Ajātaśatru to the royal throne of Rājagļha the basis of their calculation."
Express their views on the date of Buddha's Nirvāna; the learned historians observe.1 “The date of his great decease (Parinivvāņa) is a subject of keen controversy." If, the Ceylonese tradition, that 218 years intervened between the Parinivvāna and the consecration of Priyadarśana (Asoka) has any value, the day cannot be far removed from 486 B.C., the starting point of the famous 'dotted record’ at Canton”.
A Critique
The most remarkable thing in the above view of the renowned historians is that they have given no place to the date of Buddha's Nirvāņa proposed by Dr. Jacobi, and Dr. Charpentier. As pointed out before, the main reason behind this is that during the long period that has passed
1.
Ibid, p. 84.
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