Contemporaneity and Chronology of Mahavira and Buddha

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

Page 50

30
Mahāvīra and Buddha
was made by Dr. Jarl Charpentier in 19141 (i.e. in between the first and the second approaches of Dr. Jacobi.) Dr. Charpentier's conclusion is that Mahāvīra attained the Nirvāṇa after Buddha's Nirvāṇa. According to him, the dates of the Nirvāņa of Buddha and Mahavira are 477 B.C. and 467 B.C. respectively. Dr. Charpentier's conclusion is mainly based on the following two assumptions : 1. Buddha died in 477 B.C. 2. Pāvā, the place of Mahāvīra's Nirvāṇa, is different from Pāvā recorded in the Buddhist Pițakas. Now we find that these two fundamental notions have totally changed in the course of historical investigations. In past, at some time, 477 B.C. was considered by the historians to be the exact date of Buddha's decease. But in the modern history, the above date has no place at all. Secondly, Dr. Charpentier has tried to falsify the Buddhist account of the predecease of Mahāvīra on the basis that Mahāvīra died at Pāyā in South Bihar, whereas the Buddhist texts speak of Mahāvīra's Nirvāņa at Pāvā in North Bihar. But, as we have seen, almost all the modern scholars and historians are of the view that Pāvā situated in North Bihar, is the true place of Mahāvīra's Nirvāņa. Dr. Jacobi has quoted in his second approach, the above belief of Dr. Charpentier in support of his own view, but it is remarkable that Dr. Jacobi has not accepted the date of Mahāvīra's and Buddha's Nirvana, proposed by Dr. Charpentier. Actually it seems that the date of Buddha's Nirvāṇa which was popularly accepted in the history at the time of Dr. Charpentier's writing was made by Charpentier the basis of his research work. Sixteen
1. Indian Antiquary, 'The date of Mahāvira' Vol. XLIII, 1914, pp.
118 ff. 125 ff. 167 ff. 2. See, ‘Mahāvīra's Nirvāṇa in which Pāvā’, in the Chapter III of
this book.