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172
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(August, 1914.
throne about four years earlier, or 276-274 B.C. If, to obtain a more fixed date, we take the last of these years, and suppose that Aboka became king in 274 B.O., and reigned after that time 41 (4+37) years, he must have died 233 B.C. I further think, that the Brahmanical statement concerning Bindusara is more correct than the Buddhist, and that the absolutely longest duration of his reign that we can assume is 25 years; this would fix his time between 299274 B.C., and I should rather prefer to think that he began to reign some years later. Candragupta would have reigned between 323-299 B.C., and this seems to me to be very probable; for from Justin XV, 4, I fail to draw any other conclusion than that Candragupta became king of Magadha a certain time ere he conquered the western provincesA6, even if he really did see Alexander before that time.87 If Megasthenes, as seems sure, came in 303-302 B.C. to the court at Pataliputra88 and lived there some years, the earliest date for Candragupta's death may be 299 B.C., for Megasthenes certainly speaks of him as being alive.
The space of 164 years between 477 and 323 B.C. would then be filled up by Ajátalatru and his lineage and the Nanda Kings. Ajatasatru is said to have reigned 24 years after Buddha, and so we may probably fix his death at about 453 B.C. ;89 Udaya or Udayi, however, who was, in my opinion, certainly the last of the Sáisunagas, is said by the Purina to have reigned 33, by the Ceylonese chronicles only 16 years. But here also we must consider, the testimony of the Jains, with which I shall deal below, and it seems rather to confirm the Puranic view. It is certain from the Digha Nikaya, that Udâyi was thought to have been born and to have already attained some age when Ajátâ'atru visited Buddha ; but notwithstanding this he may have reigned about 30 years. This would bring us down to roughly 425 or 420 B.c., or 100 years before Candragupta. And this time may have been filled up principally by the Nandas, who reigned according to Hemacandra 95 years (see below), and according to what I have tried above to make out from the Purana about 85 years. As concerns Susunaga the name is very suspicious, for Sisunaga was founder of the dynasty to which Bimbisâra, etc., belonged ; if Kâlâsoka really existed, he may have been a Nanda. As the dynasty of the Eais un gas may thus have ceased about 420 B.C., and this is not very much at variance with the statement of Hemacandra regarding the time of Nanda's accession, I think that date may as an approximation be approved. And I find no objection whatever to accepting the vear 477 B.C. as the most probable date for the Nirvana of Buddha.90
86 The opinion of Mr. Vincent A. Smith, Early History, p. 115 sq. is the opposite one, but I cannot approve it. 7 Plutarch, Alex. ch. 72.
* Smith, L. c. p. 118 sq. 89 Theso 24 years show a remarkable coincidence with the statement of the Puranas that Ajáta atru reigned for 25 years. Does this really imply the use of a reckoning from the Nirvana of Buddha, existing in the time in which the Puranio list of kings originated? There is, of course, another coincidence in the 36 years of Asoka in the Purana and the 37 years after his coronation by the Buddhists.
80 As for the renouns adduced by Mr. Vincent A. Smith, Early History, p. 42 f., for dating the Nirvana at 487/86 B, C., they do not seem to be convincing at all. Concerning Vårsaganya and Vindhyavana, they were contemporaries of Vasubandhu, and are said in Chinese sources to have lived. 900 years after the Nirvana : but M. X. Perl, BNF EO. XI, 339 ff., has showed with sufficient evidence, that the Chinese Authors placed the Nirvans at the beginning of the sixth century B, C., and that Vesubandhu really lived before 350 AD. As for the dotted record at Canton, finished in 489 A.D., and indicating the vear 486 . O. As the Nirvana, it seems at first rather important; but when we consider, that the Buddhists of different schools have all gone astray about the date, and that no one of them, as far as I know, has ever counted with the year 486 3. c., it seems very strange if just this singlo record should have kept the right date. PararnArtha, for instance, who lived 499-560, tells us that one of his works we completed 1265 years A.D. (Peri I. o.. p. 361). As for the tradition that Aboka lived 250 years after the NirvÂUA. And was & contemporary of She-hwang-ti (246-210 B. o.), this would bring the date back to 496 B. C. (246 +250). As for the remons of Mr. V. Gopala Alyyor, Ind. Ant. XXXVII, 341 ff., they are based on the wrong interpretation of 256 in the Sahasrám. Ed., and on too uncritical acceptance of the dates given in the Ceylonese Chronicles.
