Lord Mahavira Vol 03

SR No.: 023278
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: S C Rampuria
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati Institute
Publication Year: 2001
Total Pages: 232
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 138

The Date of Mahavira
129
2. Secondly, Charpentier's calculation is based on the assumption that the Buddha died in 477 B.C. This date has since been discarded and the date of the Buddha's death has been fixed at 487 B.C. as this is the date arrived at on the basis of the Cantonese tradition, the Mahavamsa and the inscriptions of Asoka. 15 In order to discredit the tradition of the Mahavamsa that Asoka was formally crowned 218 years after the death of the Buddha, Charpentier had to take recourse to an utterly untenable argument saying that "the 218 years did not refer originally to the abhisheka, but to the completion of the conquest of Kalinga or to the first conversion, or to both these events” (IA, 1914, p. 170).
There are some other theories as well about Mahâvîra's date which we may notice in passing.
(C) S.N. Pradhan 10 holds the date 480 B.C. (= 325 +155) or 477 B.C. (= 322 + 155) for the death of Mahâvîra, accepting Hemacandra who says thatChandraguptabecame king 155 years after the death of Mahâvîra.
(D) "Certain Jain writers assume an interval of eighteen years between the birth of Vikrama and the foundation of the era attributed to him, and thereby seek to reconcile the Jain tradition about the date of Mahâvîra's Nirvana (58+18+470 = 546 B.C.) with the Ceylonese date of the Great Decease of the Buddha (544 B.C.). But the suggestion can hardly be said to rest on any reliable tradition. Merutunga places the death of the last Jina or Tirthankara 470 years before the end of Saka rule and the victory and not birth of the traditional Vikrama" (H.C. Raychaudhari. An advanced History of India, p. 86)
(E) "Certain Jain Suiras seem to suggest that Mahâvîra died about sixteen years after the accession of Ajatasatru and the commencement of his wars with his hostile neighbours. This would place the Nirvana of the Jain teacher eight years after the Buddha's death, as, according to the Ceylonese Chronicles, the Buddha died eight years after the enthronement of Ajatasatru. The Nirvana of the Tirthankara would, according to this view, fall ir 478 B.C., if we accept the Cantonese reckoning (486 B.C.) as our basis, and in 536 B.C., if we prefer the ceylonese epoch.
“The date 478 B.C. would almost coincide with that to which the testiinony of Hemacandra leads us, and place the