Jain Journal 1967 04

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

Page 28

APRIL, 1967
159
Taking 567 B.C. as the date of the birth of the Buddha this comes to 516 B.C.
On the basis of the life of Mahavira written by Muni Ratnaprabha Vijaya who has closely followed the early traditional literature on the subject we prepared the list of places where Mahavira spent his rainy seasons after leaving his home (with dates). We took 561 B.C. as the date of the birth of Mahavira and found that he spent his rainy season in 516 B.C. at Rajagrha. This was his sixteenth rainy season in his ascetic life (i.e., after leaving his home which event took place in December of 532 B.C. according to our calculation). In the rainy season of 513 B.C. also both the Buddha and Mahavira were at Rajagrha. So the date 561 B.C. as the date of the birth of Mahavira is able not only to show that the Buddha survived Mahavira but also to make both the teachers spend the same rainy season at Rajagrha. This is highly useful inasmuch as it also confirms the statement in the Buddhist literature and shows that Pali texts are not ‘fancy and invention'.
Below we propose to show that if in Buddhist literature the Buddha and Mahavira 19 have been shown as living at the same place at a particular time, we get confirmation from the life of Mahavira, too, about it pointing out that he was actually at the same particular place at that time. As Charpentier also collected, though for a different purpose, some examples of this situation when the Buddha and Mahavira were living at the same place or in the same locality, we shall begin this examination with the passages pointed out by Charpentier. (1.A. 1914, pp. 126-128)
1. “The well-known introduction to the Sāmaññaphala Sutta (Digh. Nik. I, p. 47 sq.) telling us how King Ajatasatru of Magadha paid visits to one after another of the six heretical teachers Purana Kassapa, Makkhali Gosala, Ajita Kesakambala, Pakudha Kaccayana, Sanjaya, Belathiputta and Nigantha Nataputta to hear their doctrines and at last discontented with all he had learnt took refuge with Buddha, may be a little exaggerated, as it is not very credible that Ajatasatru saw seven great teachers after each other in one single night20. But the main
19 Passages where Nat(h)aputta is merely mentioned without anything being told about him are for instance Cullavagga V. 8,1; Digh, Nik., II p. 150; Maj. Nik. I, pp. 198, 250; II, pp. 2 ff; he is called in Buddhist Sanskrit Nirgrantho Inatiputrah, e.g., Divyavadana, p. 143 ; Mahavastu, I, pp. 253, 257; III, p. 383 (Charpentier, p. 126, f.n.)
20 The visit of Ajatasatru is said in Digh. Nik. to have taken place in the full-moon of Kartika (about Nov. 1) after the end of the rainy season. (Charpentier)