Contemporaneity and Chronology of Mahavira and Buddha

Author(s): Nagrajmuni, Mahendramuni
Publisher: Today and Tomorrows Book Agency

Page 115

Research and Codclusion
95
The Ceylonese chroinicles, date back, according to the scholars' to the 4th or 5th century of our era.
The Purāṇic and the Jain chronologies are wholly Indian, and endorse each other”. It is worth noting that the authority of the Purāņic chronology has been accepted by the historians. The Buddhist chronology is non-Indian, in as much as the Ceylonese chronicles were composed in Ceylon. Dr. Rhys Davids writes :4 "In the fourth century of our era, some one collected such of these pālī 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 Dīpavainsa, the Island Chronicle...”
"As generation afterwards Mahānāma wrote his great work, the Mahāvamsa. He was no historian, and has, besides the material used by his two predecessors, only popular legends to work on.” This quotation of the renowned scholar clearly indicates of the unauthenticity of the Ceylonese chronicles. The greatest weakness of the Ceylonese chrono
1. Dr. Vincent A. Smith, Early History of India, p. 11. 2. Muni Kalyan Vijayaji has discussed this point at length in his
Vira Nirvana Samyat Aura Jaina Kalagananā, pp. 15-29. 3. Modern European writers have inclined to disparage unduly
the authority of the Purāņic lists, but closer study finds in them, much genuine and valuable historical tradition.
Dr. V. A. Smith, op. cit., p. 12.
The modern scholars have now accepted the view that the Purāņas give authentic account of ancient chronology. The facts described in them have been corporated by the edicts, the coins and the reminicences of the foreign travellers. The learned historians, therefore, state that these materials should be regarded as genuine and acceptable.
Shri Baladeva Upadhyaya, op. cit, p. 167. 4. Buddhist India, pp. 277-78.