Contemporaneity and Chronology of Mahavira and Buddha

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

Page 15

Editor's Note
XV
“The chronicles of Ceylon in the Pāli language, of which the Dīpavamsa dating probably from the fourth century after Christ, and the Mahāvaṁsa, about a century and a half later in date, are the best known, offer several discrepent versions of early Indian tradition, chiefly concerning the Maurya dynasty. These Sinhalese stories, the value of which is sometimes overestimated, demand cautious criticism at least as much as do other records of popular and ecclesiastical traditions."
Muni Sri Nagrājji has also proved that the Ceylonese chronicles have not been used with “cautious criticism.” This lack of caution, to say the least, is responsible for the intricacy of the problem. These chionicles show obvious inconsistencies as compared to the original Buddhist canons, the Tripitakas. As for example, according to the Mahāyamsa, Buddha attained Niryāna in the eighth year of Ajātsatru's reign. The historians have accepted this belief without examining it critically. But the events of the life of Buddha, as described in the Tripitakas, clearly imply that Ajātšatru's, accession had already taken place during the first twenty years of Buddha's life after his enlightenment. It means that Buddha must have lived at least for another twenty-five years after the accession of Ajātaśatru. For, according to the Samannyaphala Sutta of the Dīgha Nikāya, Ajātaśatru (King of Magadha) only once called on Buddha? during a “rainy season” passed in Räjag?ha. However, the Althakathā of the Anguttara Nikāya tells us that Buddha passed the second, third, fourth, seventeenth and twentieth "rainy season," after the enlightenment, at Rājagrha. Of the forty-six "rainy seasons,” the remaining twenty-five were spent at Srāvasti and the last at Vaišali. Then, how is it possible that Ajātaśatru's accession took place only seven or eight years before Buddha's Nirvāṇa and
1. Pp. 10-12 2. Cf. Rhys Davids, Buddhist India, p. 88,