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Xxxvi
DHAMMAPADA.
dagutta, twenty-four years (381-357). As we know that Kandagutta, whom the Ceylonese place 381-357 B.C., was king of India after Alexander's conquest, it follows that Ceylonese chronology is wrong by more than half a century. For reasons stated in my History of Sanskrit Literature, I fix the exact fault in Ceylonese chronology as sixty-six years, assigning to Kandagutta the dates 315–291, instead of 381-357. This gives us 291-263 for Bindusâra, 259 for Asoka's abhisheka; 259+118=377 for the Council of Vesâlî, and 377 +100=477 for Buddha's death, instead of 543 B.C.
These dates are, of course, approximate only, and they depend on one or two points on which people may differ. But, with that reservation, I see no ground whatever for modifying the chronological system which I put forward more than twenty years ago. Professor Westergaard and Professor Kern, who have since suggested different dates for the death of Buddha, do not really differ from me in principle, but only in their choice of one or the other alternative, which I readily admit as possible, but not as more certain than my own. Professor Westergaard, for instance, fixes Buddha's death at 368 (370), instead of 477. This seems a wide difference, but it is so in appearance only.
Following Justinus, who says that Sandrokyptos 3 had conquered the empire of India at the time when Seleucus laid the foundations of his own greatness, I had accepted 315*, half-way between the murder of Porus and the taking of Babylon by Seleucus, as the probable beginning
1 According to Bigandet, Life of Gaudama, p. 361, the era of Buddha's death was introduced by Agatasatru, at the conclusion of the First Council, and began in the year 146 of the older Eetzana era (p. 12). See, however, Rhys Davids, Num. Orient. vi, p. 38. In the Kâranda-vyűha, p. 96, a date is given as 300 after the Nirvana, tritîye varshasate gate mama parinirvritasya.' In the Asoka-avadâna we read, mama nirvritim arabhya satavarshagata Upagupto nâma bhikshur utpatsyati.
Über Buddha's Todesjahr (1860), 1862. : The Greek name Sandrokyptus shows that the Pâli corruption Kandagutta was not yet the recognised name of the king.
* Mr. Rhys Davids accepts 315 B. c. as the date when, after the murder of king Nanda, Kandragupta stept into the vacant throne, though he had begun to count his reign seven or eight years before. Buddhism, p. 220.
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