Jain Journal 1967 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 18

THE DATE OF MAHAVIRA
YOGENDRA MISHRA
The date of Mahavirą, like that of the Buddha, occupies a very important place in ancient Indian chronology ; but it has not attracted as much attention of scholars as the date of the Buddha. Indeed after Jarl Charpentier considered the problem in the Indian Antiquity of 1914 and the Cambridge History of India, Volume I, in 1922, H. C. Seth was the only scholar to take it up seriously in recent times and suggest a new date based on the Buddhist tradition. We intend to suggest here a new date for Mahavira but it is not completely new in the sense that it is based on the Buddhist tradition. We shall put this date to suitable tests with a view to examining its correctness. These tests will also, however, be based mainly on the Buddhist tradition itself which has rightly come to be regarded as very reliable for ancient Indian history.
Generally speaking, two dates of Mahavira's death hold the field. They are :
(A) 527 B.C. (Hoernle?, Guerinot), and
(B) 467 B.C. (Jacobi, Charpentier“).
(A) The date 527 B. C. is based on the tradition recorded by Merutunga, a famous Jaina author, who flourished in the fourteenth century. He gives as a basis for an adjustment between the Vira and Vikrama eras the famous verses, first quoted by Buhlers and after him discussed by Jacobi. The English translation of the verses, which is taken from Buhler, is as follows :
1 A.F.R. Hoernle, Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1898, pp. 39 ff. ? Guerinot, Essai de Bibliographie Jaina, Paris 1906, p. VII.
3 H. Jacobi, Kalpa Sutra of Bhadrabahu, Leipzig, 1879; introductions to SBE, Vols 22 (Oxford, 1884) and 45 (Oxford, 1895); 'On Mahavira and His Predecessors', Indian Antiquity, 9, 1880, pp. 156 ff.
• J. Charpentier, 'The Date of Mahavira', Ind. Ant., 1914, pp. 118-123, 125-133, 167-178 ; Chapter 6 in Cambridge History of India Vol. I (Cambridge, 1922), esp. pp. 155-156.
5 'Pushpamitra or Pushyamitra ? in Ind. Ant., 2, pp. 362-363.