Contemporaneity and Chronology of Mahavira and Buddha

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

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Mahāvira and Buddha
Contradictions.
The argument advanced by Muni Kalyana Vijayaji are not at all sufficient to prove the seniority of Buddha to Mahāvīra. In his effort to reconcile his view, he has contradicted some fundamental and well-established facts. For example, the Buddhist Tripitakas state Mahāvīra to have died earlier than Buddha. They also elucidate that Buddha himself had accepted his juniority to all the six religious teachers of his time. In addition to this, at several places Buddha's juniority is clearly indicated in them? Muni Kalyana Vijayaji has not been able to reconcile his view with all these facts. He has called everywhere such events as fabrication and falsifying. His trend regarding the Buddhist Tripițakas can not be called proper and justifying. It is to be noted that the historians-Eastern as well as Western, have recognised these scriptural evidences as fundamental facts in deciding the contemporaneity of Mahāvīra and Buddha. At some places Muni Kalyana Vijayyji has contradicted his own arguments. For example, in the beginning of his book, he has accepted the belief of the later Buddhist works that Buddha died in the 8th year of Ajātšatru's reign, as the basis of his view. Later on, he, on the basis of the fact that Gośāla's enumeration of the eight finilaties (Caramas) at the time of his death, was made sixteen years before the Mahāvīra's Nirvāṇa, concludes. “Mahavira lived for more than sixteen years after the accession of Ajātšatru while Buddha died in the eighth year of Ajātšatru's reign."
1. See for detailed discussion of all these references, 'Seniority of
Mahāvīra' in Chapter VII of this book. 2. Op. cit. p. 7.