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APPENDIX 1
The Date of Buddha
The chief landmark of Buddhist chronology is the year and date of the Buddha's parinibbana which is said to lie according to two main traditions, somewhere between 487-477 B. C. and 543-544 B. C
Charpentier, Max Muller, ard General A Cunningham asserted 477-478 B. C as the date of the Buddha's demise. According to them, the year of Chandragupta's accession was 315 B C. and it is now proved to be an erroneous premise.
Oldenberge favours 481 B. C. while V. A. Smith prefers 486 B. C Smith depends on the so called "Cantonese Dotted Record". It is said that Bhiksu Sangha bhadra sent news of the Buddha's parinibbana to China. Since then an arrangement of reckoning the Buddha's death by marking a dot each year had been made in Canton, and this dotted record continued upto the year 489 A. D. All the dots were counted in 489 A. D., and their total number reached 975, which suggests 486 B. C. as the year of Buddha's death. It is not easy to recognize the dotted record as being trust worthy unless other strong evidence supports it.
Raychaudhuri accepts 486 B. C, while Kern places it in 488 B. C On the other hand, Muni Nugaraj' mentions 502 B C. as the year of the Buddha's parinibbana. But all these conceptions do not carry weight as they do not take into account all the evidences
Another date 483 B. C., which seems more reliable, is supported by several non-traditionalists or 1eformed traditionalist scholars. Sylvain Levis pointed out from the Chinese accounts that 483 B. C. was reckoned as the Buddha's demise up to the 4th century in Ceylon, while E. R. AyrotonR, the Jate Archaeological Commissioner of Ceylon, and Wickrema
