________________
75
..........
In the Jain source (78), it has been said that as long as the stupa of Mallinatha remained standing, Konika would not be able to win Vaisali. According to the Buddhist text (79), Buddha says to Ananda" so long as the Vajjis honour and esteem and revere and support the Vajjian shrines in town and country and allow not the proper offerings and rites, as formerly given and performed, to fall into destitude....... may the Vijjins be expected not to decline, but to propsper. Then he addressed Vassakara, the Brahmana, and said, "So long as those conditions shall continue to exist among the Vajjins,. so long may we expect them not to decline but to prosper".
11
.......
There are many more such points which make it crystal clear that the opinion of Dr. Jacobi that Buddha's Nirvana was antecedent to the Vaisali war, is not correct.
We find that like Pt. Sukh Lal ji the scholars such as S' ri Gopalactase Patel and Kisturmalji Banthia have accepted Dr. Jacobi's view firmly, but this has happened only on account of their partial consideration.
Dr. Charpentier
Another independent effort to solve the present enigma was made by Dr. Jorl Charpentier in 1914 (80) (i. e. in between the first and the second approaches of Dr. Jacobi), Dr. Charpentier's conclusion is that Mahavira attained the Nirvana after Buddha's Nirvana. According to him, the dates of the Nirvana of Buddha and Mahāvīra are 477 B. C. and 467 B. C. respectively. Dr. Charpentier's finding is mainly based on the following two assumptions: 1. Buddha died in 477 B. C. 2. Pāvā, the place of Mahavira's Nirvana, is different from Pava recorded in the Buddhist Pitakas. Now we find that these two fundamental notions have totally changed in the course of historical investigations. In past, at some time, 477 B. C. was considered by the historians to be the exact date of Buddha's decease. But in the modern history, the above date has no place at all. Secondly, Dr. Charpentier has tried to falsify the Buddhist account of the predecease of Mahavira on the basis that Mahavira died at Pava in South Bihar, whereas the Buddhist texts speak of Mahavira's Nirvana at Pava in North Bihar, is the true place of Mahavira's Nirvana (81). Dr. Jacobi has quoted in his second approach, the above belief
