Contemporaneity and Chronology of Mahavira and Buddha

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

Page 53

Dr. K.P. Jayaswal
33 taken place when he was 18 years old, and the event was marked by the beginning of the Vikrma era. Thus (470+18=) 488 years after Mahāvīra's Nirvāņa commenced the Vikrma era (58 B.C.). But the above 18 years were left out in the Jain Chronology. Thus, it was clearly a mistake to count a lapse of 470 years between Mahāvīra's Nirvāņa and the commencement of Vikrma era".
In this way, according to Dr. Jayaswal : Mahāvīra attained the Nirvāṇa in 488 +58=546 B.C.
A Critique
Dr. Jayaswal's view that the Buddhist allusions about Mahāyīra's predecease should not be neglected, is really justifiable. But his assuming an interval of two years between the deaths of Mahāvīra and Buddha on the basis of the popular belief about the Sāmgāma Suttanta, and his computing the interval between Mahāvīra's Nirvāṇa and the Vikrma era by adding 18 years to the traditional number 470, are not based at all on confirmed sources. The famous historians', commenting on the view, write: “The suggestion can hardly be said to rest on any reliable traditionMerutunga2 places the death of the last Jina or Tīrthankara 470 years before the end of Saka rule and the victory and not birth of the traditional Vikrma.” Also the belief that Buddha had heard about Mahāvīra's Nirvāņa in Şāmagāma exactly two years before his own death, is a mere speculation.
1. Dr. R.C. Majumdar, Dr. H.C. Raychaudhari and Dr. K.K. Datta,
An Advanced History of India, p. 85. Vikrmarajjārambhā parao siri vīra nivyui māniyā ! Sunna muni veya jutto vikkama-kālau Jina-käla !! Vicāra Śreņi pp. 3, 4.
2.