Contemporaneity and Chronology of Mahavira and Buddha

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

Page 63

Muni Kalyana Vijayaji
43 Now, as we have already seen, the belief that Buddha's Nirvāņa took place in the eighth year of the Ajātšatru's reign, is quite legendary and only based on later works. Even if we assume it to be correct for the sake of argument, it could not be reconciled with the fact that śreņika had died seventeen years before Mahavira's Nirvāņa.2 For if we assume Buddha's Nirvāņa to have taken place in the eighth year of Ajātšatru's reign, the interval between Buddha's and Mahāvīra's Nirvāņa could not exceed nine years. But we have seen that Muni Kalyana Vijayaji himself states this interval to be 141 years. Thus, there is a self-contradiction in his views. If there are such inconsistencies, how the solution put forward by Muni Kalyana Vijayaji can be considered acceptable? In the field of history, one has always to think from a historian's point of view.
Shri Vijayendra Suri
Recently, a valuable effort was made by Shri Vijayendra Suri to simplify the problem of contemporaneity and chronology of Mahāvīra and Buddha. His novel treatise}, dealing with the life of Mahāvīra, is really a treasure of historical facts. Shri Vijayendra Suri has proved in this book by adducing a lot of authoritative references that the date of Mahāvīra's Nirvāṇa is 527 B.C.4 Without making any critical remarks, he has accepted 544 B.C. as the date
1. See also the Editor's Notes for the contradiction between the
belief and the Buddhist Scriptures. 2. See, for the establishment of this fact,-Contradictions' in chapter
III of this book. 3. Tirthankar Mahāvīra (in two Volumes) published by Kāšīnātha
Saraka Yasodharma Mandira, Bombay, 1963. 4. Tiriharker Mahāvīra, Vol. II, pp. 319-324.