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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1908.
The date of Buddha's Nirvana thus comes to be of wore i han passing importance. It formos a significant landmark, at all events, in the history of India. In that year was held the first Great Buddhist Council at Rajagriha, the then capital of the Magadban Empire, under the distinguished presidency of Kaśyapa. It was the eighth year of the reign of Ajâtabatra, king of Magadha, son of that Bimbisára of the Suisunaga Dynasty, who stopped a great sacrifice he was then pompously celebrating at the gentle bidding of Gautama, when he spoke
"Of life, which all can take but none can give, Life, which all creatures love and strive to keep."
The epoch of the Nirvana gradually came to be the commencement of an era, adopted by Asoka in some of his inscriptions and by the chronicles of the Southern Bnddhists. It was prevalent in In-lia even in the days of the great astronomer Vriddhagarga, who is known to have flourished in the second century B.C. The era became so universal during the period of Buddhist supremacy in India that the word saka or <dkakdla, originally intended to denote the era of Sakya's Nirvana, came subsequently to signify any era. Thus it will be readily seen that it is desirable to fix this epoch for a proper understanding of the history and chronology of Aucient India.
Many fanciful dates have been ascribed for the epoch, which need not here be seriously discussed. The Northern Buddhists give dates ranging from 2422 to 546 B.C., and the lin Akburi of Abu'l-Fazal fixes 1246 B.C. for the event. The Tamil Munimegalai gives the year 1616 of some unknowners, probably of the Kali, and the Buddhists of Ceylon, Burma and Siam have unifornily been regulating their calendars on the basis that the Nirvana occurred in B.C. 513. The Western scholars are likewise as much divided in their opinions, though their dates range only from 514 to 870 B.C. Professors Rhys Davids and Kern give 412 and 888 B 0., respectively, for the ParaNirvana, whereas Max Müller to the last maintained that 477 B.C. was the correct date. Dr. Fleet considers the event to have taken place in B.C. 482,' and Professor Oldenburg and M. Barth fix it in 480 B.C. Mr. V. A. Smith has given us three different dates, B.C. 508 in his Asoka, 487 in his Early India, and 480 to 470 B.C. in a recently published article. It is my present purpose to consider whether, with all these discordant and divergent opinions before us, we conot yet discover & date in thorough accord with the materials available to us; and should we be able to dedace such a date, my purpose is also to find out why the Southern Buddhists have, for a long period of time, uniformly accepted 544-3 B. O, for the epoch.
For the purpose of such an enquiry we have first to determine the epoch of the Maurya Era, which again can only be fixed by a discussion of the dates of Chandragupta, the founder of the Maurya Dynasty, and of his grandson Aboka-vardhans, who made a world religion of the creed of Buddha. This Asoka is different from Kalisoka of the Ceylonese Chronicles, who has been identified with Mahapadma Nanda of the Puranas, and in whose reign the Second Buddhistic Council is reputed to have been held at Vaisali, under the presidency of Ratha, after the lapse of a century from Buddha's Nirvåna. According to the Ceylonese Chronicles, Asoka-vardhana Maurya, on the other hand, was converted to the Buddhist faith in the fourth year after his accession and formally crowned soon after in the same year. He is therein stated to have held the Third Buddbistic Council under Tishya in his eighteenth regual year, 235 years after the death of Buddha.
?J. R. A. 8., 1906, pp. 179 and €69.
Indian Review, Vol. VIII, p. 561. For these and other particulars, see Tornour's Mahawanua, edited by Wijoninha; Oldenberg's Dipawanwa, and V. A. Smith's Asoka, pp. 159-174.
