Contemporaneity and Chronology of Mahavira and Buddha

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

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Mahāvīra and Buddha
chaudhuri and Dr. K.K. Dattat hold that Buddha attained Nirvāna in the fifth century B.C. Dr. E.J. Thomas goes to the extent of saying that Buddha's Nirvāna took place in the fourth century B.C. and in this he has also been supported by a Japanese scholar. An authoritative scholar of Buddhism, Dr. Rhys Davids, reviewing this subject in The Cambridge History of India writes:3 “Unfortunately, even after all that has been written on the subject of the early Buddhist chronology, we are still uncertain as to the exact date of Buddha's death. The date 483 B.C. which is adopted in this history must still be regarded as provisional.”
Muni Sri Nagarājji, the author of this volume, has waded through the mass of canonical literature of the Jains and the Buddhists (popularly known as Agamas and Tripitakas) to arrive at the contemporaneity of Mahāvīra and Buddha. It is unfortunate that historians had so far ignored these important works and had instead relied on later literary contributions, the veracity of which is doubted. That is why Dr. Vincent A. Smith was constrained to remark in The Early History of India : "The sacred books of the Jaina sect, which are still very imperfectly known, also contain numerous historical statements and allusions of considerable value.
“The Jataka or birth stories and other books of the Buddhist canons includes many incidental references to the political condition of India in the fifth and the sixth centuries B.C., which although not exactly contemporary with the event alluded to, certainly transmit genuine historical tradition.”
1. An Advanced History of India, p. 88. 2. Recently Dr. E. J. Thomas has pointed out (B. C. Law Commemo
ration Volume, II, pp. 18-22) that, according to Saravastiyadin, Ashoka flourished about a century after Buddha's Nirvana. This
even borne out in the Sinhalese chronicles and a Japanese scholar quoted by Thomas places this even in 386 B.C. 3. Vol. I, p. 152.