Jain Journal 1967 04

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

Page 24

APRIL, 1967
of Mahavira's nirvāņa (58+18+470-546 B.C.) with the Ceylonese date of the Great Decease of the Buddha (544 B.C.). But the suggestion can hardly be said to rest on any reliable tradition. Merutunga places the death of the last Jina or Tirthankara 470 years before the end of Saka rule and the victory and not birth of the traditional Vikrama." (H. C. Raychaudhuri, An Advanced History of India, p. 86)
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(E) "Certain Jaina Sutras seem to suggest that Mahavira died about sixteen years after the accession of Ajatasatru and the commencement of his wars with his hostile neighbours. This would place the nirvana of the Jaina teacher eight years after the Buddha's death, as, according to the Ceylonese chronicles, the Buddha died eight years after the enthronement of Ajatasatru. The nirvana of the Tirthankara would, according to this view, fall in 478 B.C., if we accept the Cantonese reckoning (486 B.C.) as our basis, and in 536 B.C., if we prefer the Ceylonese epoch.
"The date 478 B.C. would almost coincide with that to which the testimony of Hemacandra leads us, and place the accession of Candragupta Maurya in 323 B.C., which cannot be far from truth. But the result in respect of Mahavira himself is at variance with the clear evidence of the Buddhist canonical texts which make the Buddha survive his Jnatrka rival.
"The Jaina statement that their Tirthankara died some sixteen years after the accession of Kunika (Ajatasatru) can be reconciled with the Buddhist tradition about the death of the same teacher before the eighth year of Ajatasatru if we begin their reckoning from the accession of that prince to the viceregal throne of Campa, while the Buddhists make the accession of Ajatasatru to the royal throne of Rajagrha the basis of their calculation." (H. C. Raychaudhuri, p. 86)
(F) In the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1917, S. V. Venkateswara wrote an article entitled "The Date of Vardhamana' (pages 122-130) in which he suggested "the date 437 B.C. or 470 of the Annada Vikrama era" as the date of the nirvana of Vardhamana, "the founder of modern Jainism". His view is based on the Svapnavasavadatta of Bhasa wherein the Sanskrit dramatist "introduces Pradyota as seeking the hand of Darsaka's sister in marriage for his own son." (p. 129) The reign of Darsaka as accepted by Venkateswara is 437-413 B.C. Thus Canda Pradyota was alive at the beginning of the reign of