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Problem of Chronology
There are mainly three sources, which throw light on the ancient chronology of India:
1. Puranic, 2. Jain, 3. Buddhist
The first of these, viz., the Puranic chronology is based on the Purana such as Visnu Purana, Matasya Purana. Vavu Purana. Bhagvat-Purana, etc. The second one i.e. the Jain chronology is found in the ancient works of Jain tradition such as, Titthogali Painnaya, Merutunga's Vicara Sreni, etc. The Buddhist chronology is based on the Ceylonese chronicles Dipavamsa and Maha - vamsa.
The first of the above sources is the earliest of all. The Puranas cited above according to the historians, were compiled in the fourth century BC. (195).
Titthogali Painnaya, the work of the Jain tradition describing the chronology of ancient India, is believed to be composed in the 3rd or the 4th century A. D. (196).
The Ceylonese chronicles, date back, according to the scholars (197) to the 4th or 5th century of our era.
The Puranic and the Jain chronologies are wholly Indian, and endorse each other (198). It is worth noting that the authority of the Puranic chronology has been accepted by the historians (199). The Buddhist chronology is non-Indian, in as much as the Ceylonese chronicles were composed in Ceylon. Dr. Rhys Davids writes (200): "In the fourth century of our era, some one collected such of these Pali verses, as referred to the history of Ceylon, piecing them together by other verses to make a consecutive. He called his poem, thus constructed, the Dipavamsa, the Island Chronicle......"
"As generation afterwards Mahanama wrote his great work, the Mahavamsa. He was no historian, and has, besides the material used by his two predecessors,
