________________
174
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
Udâyin, the predecessor of Nanda, was a faithful Jaina, and Ajâtaśatru may have been something of the same.93 No wonder then that the Buddhists style them a lineage of parricides', which elsewhere is only known to suit Ajâtasatru.
[AUGUST, 1914
Thus sixty years elapsed between the Nirvana of Mahâvira and the accession of Nanda. This period was evidently, according to the Jains, filled up by part of the reign of Kunika (Ajâtaśatru) and the whole reign of Udâyin, and I have tried above to prove, that Udâyin was most probably the last of his dynasty. Now if Buddha died, as I think proved, in 477 B.C., Ajàtasatru must have become king 485 B.C., i.e., eight years before the Nirvâna. The first enterprise of the new ruler was a war with the old king of Kosala, the brother of his father's second wife. Now the Bhagavati, Saya XV,94 states that the heresiarch Gosâla, the bitter rival of Mahavira, died at Srâvasti, just after that war,95 and that Mahâvîra survived him for 16 years. That this statement coincides with the other dates given concerning Gosâla is seen from the fact that he claimed to have attained Jinahood two years before Mahavira, when the latter was 40 years old, and that after that time they did not see each other for 16 years. Their next and last meeting did not occur before the year of Gosâla's death. So Mahavira must have been 56 years old, when Gosâla died, and as he attained the age of 72, he consequently did survive him for 16 years. 9c These 16 years bring us down to a time shortly after 470 B.C., say about 468-67, and this coincides quite with the date proposed by Professor Jacobi for the death of Mahâvira on the authority of Hemacandra. There is no exact statement, as far as I know, that Mahâvira died during the reign of Kunika-Ajâtaśatru, but there is also nothing said concerning an interview between him and Udâyi; and I think we must rather conclude that the reign of Ajâtaśatru is correctly stated in the Buddhist chronicles to have lasted for about 30 years, but that the reign of Udâyi must have lasted for more than 16, or even more than 33 years, if really there was no one between Ajâtaśatru and him."7
The Nandas, served by very clever ministers, descendants of Kalpaka, the minister of the first Nanda, were nine in number. The minister of the last of them was the famous Sakațâla, here said to have been the father of Sthûlabhadra, the seventh (or ninth) pontiff of the Jain church, who died 215 (or 219) after Mahavira. The stories of Nanda, Sakațâla and Vararuci, and of the youth of Candragupta and his connection with Cânakya seem all to be merely fairy. tales: albeit it is remarkable, that they are found already in the commentaries on the Avaiyaka Niryukti, and agree partly with the tales in Kathasaritsagara, etc., and to a stiil greater extent with the stories told in the Mahavamsa tika 119, 8 ff.; 121, 22 ff.99 But this cannot be of any value to us here, and only proves furthermore, that some centuries after the beginning of our era popular stories about the epoch of the Nandas and the Mauryas were current in India' (Jacobi, Parsii tap. p. 50 n. 2). After all the only useful passage is here the verse VIII, 339:
evam ca śrimahaviramukte varsajate gate |
pañcapaicâ adadhike Candragupto' bhavan nṛpaḥ ||
Which Jacobi99 has already emphasised as giving another and better tradition concerning the death of Mahâvîra. The similarity in construction between the expression:
93 Jacobi, Kalpas, p. 5.
91 Concerning the following Cf. Dr. Hoernle's Uvds App. I and Hasting's Encyl. p. 260 sq.
95 That it occurred after the war seems clear from the statement of the Bhug. p. 1254 sq. that an allusion to the war is included in the doctrine of the eight finalities' of Gosâla. Cf. Hoernle . c. p. 263. 96 Cf. Hoernle Uvás. II, p. 110.
If Ajàtasatru survived Buddha for 24, he must have survived Mahavira for 14 years, if we accept the year 467 B.C. for the latter, and then Udayi would have reigned for 46 years according to the statement of Hemacandra concerning 60 years between the death of Mahavira and Nanda's accession. This seems to be a very long time, for he is spoken of as a boy already at his father's interview with Buddha, some 30 years before his own accession to the throne (D. N. I, 50).
Cf. Turnour Mahavamsa I, p. XXXIX ff. and Geiger, Dipav. and Mahav. p. 42 ff. The agreement between this text and the Parisistaparvan extends to the most trifle details. The Mahavamsatika seems to be late (Geiger l. c. p. 37), but it contains old material.
99 Kalpas. p. 8 ff.
