Contemporaneity and Chronology of Mahavira and Buddha

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

Page 65

Muni Kalyana Vijayaji
45 he would have really received the news of Gośāla's death ? If one accepts the veracity of the Pițakas' evidence that the above event had really taken place, it is not reasonable to believe another testimony of the Pițakas that the event had happened years before Buddha's death ?
Dr. Shanti Lal Shah
A valuable work, titled 'Chronological Problems,' written by Dr. Shanti Lal Shah, has been published in 1934 from Bonn (Germany)'. The object of this book, in the words of the author himself, is? : Not alone to fix the death-years of Buddha or Mahāvīra or the coronation date of Candragupta and Aśoka, nor to authenticate the Jain traditional account, but also to reconstruct the chronology of the whole history of Northern India from Ajātšatru to Kanişka is the aim of this book”. The author has strived much to reconstruct the chronology of the kings from Ajātsatru to Kanişka to fulfil his object. He has also succeded in giving historical form to some beliefs, but his effort to authorticate the Jain traditional belief here and there, shows rather his opinionated tendencies.
According to Dr. Shah, the dates of Mahāvīra's and Buddha's Nirvāņa, are 527 B.C. and 543 B.C. respectively. He has accepted these dates only by saying, “According to the traditional dates of the Nirvāņa of both Mahāvīra and Buddha, the former died 16 years after the later, (543527).” The traditional belief cannot be accepted as historical facts, unless they are substantiated by authentic evidences. But it seems that Dr. Shah has given no impor
1. Publisher's name is not printed on the book. 2. Chronological Problems, Preface, p. I. 3. Op. cit. p. 23