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336
BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM.
the Asiatic Society of Bengal has undertaken the publication of the text and translation by Rajendra lál Mitra. The entire work has been published at Paris, translated from the Tibetan, as I have mentioned, by M. Foucaux *, who has compared it carefully with the Sanskrit, and bears testimony to the closeness of the Tibetan translation. He ascribes its composition to a period subsequent to the third convocation, or about 150 years B.C. It was translated, as I have stated, into Chinese in the first century after, which is compatible enough with the date assigned to its first composition, and there is internal evidence in favour of the same date **
It is, undoubtedly, subsequent to the Mahábhárata, which I have elsewhere conjectured to be about two centuries prior to Christianity; for it is said, that when the choice of the family in which the Buddha should be born was under consideration in the Tushita heaven, that of the Pandavas of Hastinapura was objected to, because they had filled their genealogy with confusion, terming Yudhishthira the son of Dharma, Bhímasena the son of Váyu, Arjuna of Indra, Nakula and Sahadeva of the Aświns; all very correct citations *** In the proofs also of his skill in archery
* [See A. Schiefner in "Mélanges Asiatiques”. St. Petersbourg: 1852. I, 217 ff.]
** [Wassiljew, 1. 1., I, 192. St. Julien in Foucaux's Lalitavistara, II, p. xvi.]
*** (Lalitavistara, Calcutta edit., p. 24.]
