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INTRODUCTION.
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danger of unexpected confirmations of one's own views, yet, after carefully weighing the objections raised by Mr. Rhys Davids and Professor Pischel against Dr. Bühler's arguments, I cannot think that they have shaken Dr. Bühler's position. I fully admit the difficulties in the phraseology of these inscriptions: but I ask, Who could have written these inscriptions, if not Asoka? And how, if written by Asoka, can the date which they contain mean anything but 256 years after Buddha's Nirvana? These points, however, have been argued in so masterly a manner by Dr. Bühler in his Second Notice,' that I should be afraid of weakening his case by adding anything of my own, and must refer my readers to his 'Second Notice.' Allowing that latitude which, owing to the doubtful readings of MSS., and the constant neglect of odd months, we must allow in the interpretation of Buddhist chronology, Asoka is the only king we know of who could have spoken of a thirty-fourth year since the beginning of his reign and since his conversion to Buddhism. And if he calls that year, say the very last of his reign (222 B.C.), 256 after the departure of the Master, we have a right to say that as early as Asoka's time, Buddha was believed to have died about 477 B.C. Whether the inscriptions have been accurately copied and rightly read is, however, a more serious question, and the doubts raised by Dr. Oldenberg (Mahâvagga, p. xxxviii) make a new collation of the originals absolutely indispensable, before we can definitely accept Dr. Bühler's interpretation.
I cannot share Dr. Bühler's opinion as to the entire worthlessness of the Gaina chronology in confirming the date of Buddha's death. If the Svetâmbara Gainas place the death of Mahâvîra 470 before Vikramaditya, i. e. 56 B.C. +470=526 B.C., and the Digambaras 605, i.e.78 A.D.deducted from 605=527 B.C., this so far confirms Dr. Bühler's and Dr. Jacobi's brilliant discovery that Mahâvîra was the same as Nigantha Nâtaputta, who died at Pâvâ during Buddha's lifetime. Most likely 527 is too early a date, while another 1 Three Edicts, p. 21; Second Notice, pp. 9, 10.
See Jacobi, Kalpa-sätra of Bhadrabahu, and Oldenberg, Zeitschrift der D.M.G., XXXIV, p. 749.
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