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predecessor of the king, for the benefit of the Bodi-shrine, S. Paranavitana, on the basis of this earliest inscription so far found in which a date is given in the Buddhist era reckoning from the Pariairvāņa of Buddha along with the regnal year of the king reigning at the time, has been able to say that the Budhist era reckoned from 544 B C. was prevalent in the reign of king Upatissa l (368-410 ). A. D25.
It is to be noted here that some scholars think of 483 B. C. as the Ceylones: traditional era of the Buddha's Nirvāņa. M. De. Z. Wickremasinghe, however, tried to establish the view that till the 11th Centuary A. D. the tradition of counting the Buddhist era from 433 B. C. was prevalent both in India as well as in Ceylon. He suggested that the mistake imight have occured in regard to the length of reigns assigned to the several kings who preceded the great Vijaya Bāhu 1. His reason for suggesting it is that it was a century of foreign domination for about 86 or 96 years, the Cholians over-Tan the Island, carrying destruction every-where. If a mistake did really occur in this chronology, it is most probable that it was due to such difficult circumstances.26
Senaviratne27 too has attempted to prove that the death of Buddha took place in the year 483 B. C., on the strength of the conclusion arrived at by Fleet and accepted by Geiger and Wikramasinghe. He says that the correctness of Fleet's date is beyond question. According to him, the above date continued till the time of Parākramabāhu VI when it was corrupted by the addition of 93 years; and a few centuries still liter a Buddhist monk at kandy dropped out of this 93, when the era assumed its present date.
But these views are refuted by other eminent scholars. E. Hultzsch 28 pointed out that the above view, that of reckoning the era from 483 B. C. is based on an erroneous translation by Wijesinghe of passage in the Calavamsa ( Chapter, 53.v, 44 ), H, W. Codringron2 remarked on the paper of Seneviratne that the Kalyani inscription indicated that the "Sakarāja" era as that used in Burma and dating from
