Jainism in Buddhist Literature

Author(s): Bhagchandra Jain Bhaskar
Publisher: Alok Prakashan

Page 46

( 27 ) the tradition of the Pali Capon has to be rejected. Both, Jacom bi and Charpentier were of the view that the statement in the Pali Canon to the effect that Mahavira died when the Buddha was at Pava was spurious. But this gives rise to a farther problem in view of the fact that the death of the Buddha is now widely accepted as having occured in 543 B. C. Therefore this quistion needs further investigation as the interval between the death of Buddha and Mahāvira could not have been as long as 75 years. Basham, too, is inclined to accept Jacobi's view. But he based his arguments on the Bhagavati Satra and a less favoured theory about the date of the Buddh's Parinirvana in 483 B. C. He says ; "If we accept 483 B. C. as the date of the Buddha's nirvāna, on the basis of Mahāvamsa synchronism, the accession of Ajātasattu must have occured in the year 481.480 B. C. The first campaign, soon after which the death of Gosāla occurred, must have taken place at some time between the date of Ajātasattu's accession and the year preceding the Buddha's death." He then suggests that "the first campaign occured in 484B, C,, and the death of Gosāla in that year, or in 484 B. C. On the strength of the Bhagvati statement that Mahāvīra survived Gosala for sixteen and a half years, this date would place Mahāvíra's death in 468-467 B. C59."
As regards the reference to the Nigantha Nataputta in Pāli scripture he suggests that “the Pāli record may not in fact refer to the death of Mahavira at Pavā, but to that of Gosāla at Savatthi, which Bhagvati Sūtra also mentions as having been accompained by quarrelling and confusion. At a later date, when the chief rival of Buddhism was no longer Ajivikism but Jainism, the name may have been altered to add to the signifi cance of the account6o. The explanation of Basham tbat the Pali Canon recorded the death of Gosäla and not that of Mābavira appears to be farfetched.
Majumdar and Raychaudhuri are of the view that Mahā. vira's death should have taken place in 478 B. C. In support of this theory they suggest that Mahavira died about sixteen