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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1908.
single point in the whole history of India on which the chronicles of Ceylon and further India are so distinct and unanimous than that Buddha died - or as they express it, attained Nirvana - at the age of eighty years in the year 543 B.O., or in the year 148 of the Eetzana or Aujana epoch."
I believe that the erroneous idea regarding the value of the Ceylonese Chronicles is due to R certain extent to the ciroumstance that no explanation was forthcoming why the Ceylonese date for the Nirvana should be nearly six d ades anterior to the one which may be inferred from reliable data. This antedating of the Era of the Nirvana injuriously affected to a certain extent the correctness of the chronology of the Dipavansa and the Mahdoansa. Turnour accepts 543 B. C. for the Nirvana, but supposed that the date of Asoka was carried back by a period of sixty years for the reason that it was thought expedient for the good of religion that the landing of Vijia, the first Buddhist missionary to Ceylon, should be coincident with the death of Buddha.
But this far-fetched explanation cannot be accepted for the simple reason that it assumes a wrong date, namely, 543 B. C. for the Nirvana of Buddha. On the other hand, the real reason for the antedating by the Chronicles of the Nirvana by & period of 38 years, the diffərence between the Ceylonese date 543 B. C. and B. C. 487, the date advanced herein, must be sought for elsewhere. I believe that it is due to an erroneous belief entertained by early Buddhists that the Maurya Era began with Asoka, the Constantine of the followers of Gautama. They ignored the possibility of the era cominencing with the accession to the throne of Magadha of a non-Baddhist King, namely, Chandragupta, who did not loom so largely in public estination. They knew that Asoka dated his edicts by the years elapsed since his coronation, and naturally supposed that the Maurya Era, which was current in the third and second centuries before Christ is can be inferred from the Hatigumpha Inscription date in the year 165 of the Maurya Era, began with the coronation of their greatest Emperor. Aboka's coronation was thus placod 56 years earlier, the interval between the Mauryan epoch of 325 B. C. and 269 B. C., the correct date of his coronation. And as Baddhists believe that he was formally crowned “after 218 years haul elapsed since the death of Buddha," the Great Sakyamuni was erroneously supposed to have passed in the year 325 +218 or 543 B. C. "unto Nirvana, where the Silence lives." 18
18 In two communications from Dr. Vleet, since published in the J. R. A. 8. for 1908, PP. 486 and 815, he accepts the statements of the Dipruvana that Aboks reigoed 37 years after his anointment in the 218th year after Buddha's death, but rejeots the other statement that Asoka was converted to Buddhism in the 4th year after his accession to the throne. Dr. Fleet takes adhitiaans to mean 27 years and says: "Asoka wus con verted to Buddhism and became # lay disciple about half-way through the soth year after his apointment. A little more than 2 years later .. he formally joined the Buddhist Samgba. A little more than 5 years after that, early in the 38th year, he took the vows of a monk, perhaps installing Dabaratha bis successor. And from that retirement, 1 year later, early to the 39th year, be sent forth this notification (the minor rook ediota of Brahmagiri, ate.)" I respectfully submit that it is against the tenor of Asoka's edicts and the Ceylonese Chronicles to suprone that Aloks was converted to Buddhirm only so late as the 8th after his coronation. Asoka would not have set up" the Rammindei Pillar in bis 21st year in memory of Buddha's birth and done "reverence to Buddba Sakyamani" and called him " Bhagavin," unless he had been a Buddhist already. His enlargement, for the second time of the spa of Buddha Kobaksmans in the 15th year of his reign as recorded on the Nigliva Pillar, his constant references in his inseriptions to Dhamma, the Buddhist word for Religion, the circumstance tbat he does not mention in any of his insoriptions any of the Hindu deities which would bave been impossible in a Hindu as pious as Aboka, the evidence afforded by bis 18th took adiet of his missionary zeal which must certainly have been in the air of some provely tizing religion like that of Buddha, and not merely for the incoloation of the primary duties of man which all men recognised, his opinion that the best of all deeds in the proolamation of Dhamma (Rook Ediot IV), his condemnation of animal slanghter, his directions for the convoking of the General Assembly once in every 5 years for proclaiming Dhamma and his reference in his third rook odiot to the olergy (paried) for teaching the same to others, the definitions given in his inscriptions of true ceremonial and true charity, and above all, the clear statement of the Ceylonos Chronicles that he was converted in the 4th year after his accession to the throne, all go to prove that be joined the samo Buddhist faith as a layman in which 321 years later he was confirmed as a monk.
