Jain Journal 1967 04

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

Page 22

APRIL, 1967
153
also brings Bhadrabahu into the closest connection with Candragupta in whose reign the date 297 B.C. falls.
5. The Kalpa Sūtra was finished 980 years after Mahavira, but in another recension the number is 993. The commentaries, all going back to the old Chūrni, refer this date to four different events. One such event is the public recitation of the Kalpa Sūtra before king Dhruvasena of Anandapura whose reign lasted from A.D. 526 to A.D. 540. Thus we find a most remarkable coincidence, for 993 – 467=526, or just the year King Dhruvasena's accession to the throne of Valabhi.
6. The Jaina creed is called in Buddhist literature cāturyāma, 'consisting in four restrictions'. But Mahavira enforced five great vows upon his followers. From this Charpentier concludes that Mahavira did not finally fix his doctrine of the five vows before a somewhat later date, when the Buddha was already out of any connection with him.
7. Bimbisarall is the main ruler in the Buddhist canonical texts, and Ajatasatru does not appear so very much there. In the Jaina canon Kunika plays a far more important role in the life of Mahavira. This may point to a later period of Ajatasatru's reign.
8. Although the date 467 B.C. (suggested long ago by Jacobi and strongly supported by Charpentier) has good points in it, it presents two very serious difficulties :
1. Firstly, this "date does not accord with the explicit statement in some of the earliest Buddhist texts that Mahavira predeceased the Buddha.” (H.C. Raychaudhuri) Charpentier also knows that this date is "contradicted by a passage in the Buddhist Digha Nikāyal2 which tells us that Nigantha Nataputta—the name by which the Buddhists denote Mahavira-died before Buddha. This assertion is, however, in contradiction with other contemporaneous statements, and forms" for him "no real obstacle to the assumption of the date 468 B.C.” (C.H.I., I, p. 156) He adds that he considers "this evidence too strong to be thrown over on account of this passage in the Pali canon." (1.A., 1914, p. 177)
For several reasons it is very difficult to agree with Charpentier :
11 See SBE, Vol. 50 (Index), p. 99, for the references regarding the Buddha's frequent meetings with Bimbisara.
18 Digha Nikaya, III, pp. 117 sq., 209 sq. Also Majjhima Nikaya, II, pp. 273 sq. Cf. Chalmers, JRAS, 1895, pp. 665-666.