Contemporaneity and Chronology of Mahavira and Buddha

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

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Mahāvīra and Buddha
'Titthogāli Painnaya, which is supposed to be much older than both the books viz. Kahāvali of Bhadresavara and Parisiṣṭa Parva of Hemacandra.
It seems that the period of 60 years of the reign of Pālaka has completely been omitted in the calculation of Hemacandra's Parisiṣṭa Parva. Mr. Purna Chandra Nahar, M.A., B.L., M.S., and Mr. Krishna Chandra Gosh, Vedantachintamani write1, "Hem Chandra-charaya must have omitted by oversight to count the period of 60 years of King Palaka after Mahāvīra's Nirvāṇa."
Dr. Jacobi has edited Parisiṣṭa Parva2. He has observed in the preface to it that Hemacandracarya had composed that work in haste, as a consequence of which the work is studed with errors. Elaborating the subject in the preface itself, Dr. Jacobi has illustrated several compositional and grammatical errors comitted by Hemacandra with concrete evidences. It is quite probable that the verse on the basis of which Dr. Jacobi has inferred the date of Mahävira's Nirvana, might have also been composed with the same carelessness. The date of Mahāvīra's Nirvāņa accepted by Hemacandrācārya himself, while stating the period of his own contemporary king Kumarapala is 527 B.C., and not 477 B. C. Hemacandracarya writes in Trişaṣṭisalakāpurścaritra3: "When 1669 years will have been completed after the death of Mahāvīra, there will flourish a king named Kumarapala who will shine like a moon of Caulu
1. Epitome of Jainism, Appendix A, IV. 2. Published by Asiatic Society, Calcutta.
3.
Asmin nirvāṇato varṣaśatyā (tā) nyamayaṣoḍaśa ! Navaşaṣṭiśca yasyanti yadā tatra pure tada !! Kumarapalabhūpālo, caulukyakula-candramāḥ! Bhavisyati mahabahuḥ pracanḍakhanḍaśāsanaḥ !! -Trişaṣṭisalākāpuruşacaritra, parva X cantos XII, vv. 45-46