Jainism in North India

Author(s): Chimanlal J Shah
Publisher: Longmans Green and Compny London

Page 64

MAHAVIRA AND HIS TIMES learned scholars have worked out their conclusions with so much minuteness and historical accuracy that we need not repeat here the grounds put fortfard by them for justifying their opinions. They rightly agree in accepting the chronological fact put forward by Hemacandra, and come to the inevitable conclusion that the date of this epoch must be somewhere about 467 B.C.1
"I have tried to show," says Charpentier," that the chronological list on which the Jainas found this assumption of a period of 470 years between the death of Mahāvīra and the commencement of the Vikrama era is almost entirely valueless. The line of rulers composed in order to fill up the time is wholly unhistorical and can by no means be trusted. ..." 2 Leaving aside the wholly hypothetical basis of the Jaina tradition, the other grounds put fortard by the eminent scholars are the contemporary existence of both Mahāvīra and Buddha, and the more trustworthy historical facts put forward by Hemacandra.
That the two prophets were different persons, contemporaries and founders of rival communities of monks, is now an established fact. "But, if we beliered the Jaina tradition to be right, when it asserts the death of Mahāvīra to have taken place 470 years before Vikrama, or 527 B.C., we might doubt whether this is possible. For the death of Buddha, the date of which was first, and in my opinion rightly, fixed by General Cunningham and Professor Max Muller, occurred in 477 B.C.; and as all sources are unanimous in telling us that he was then 80 years old, he must have been born in 557 B.C. From this it is clear that if Mahāvīra died in 527 B.C, Buddha at that stage was only 30 years of age, and as he did not attain Buddhahood and gained no followers before his 36th year-ie. about 521 B.C.—it is quite impossible that he should never have met Mahāvīra. Moreover, both are stated to have lived during the reign of Ajātasatru, who became king eight years before the death of Buddha, and reigned
1 Xo doubt there are other scholars who hold the contrary opinion, but their discussions having been rendered obsolete by Jacobi and Charpentier we shall not dwell upon them any further Just to mention a fet amongst them. Burgess, 1.A, 1, p 140, Rice (Lewis), A, m, 157, Thomas (Edward), IA, 111,P 80, Pathak, IA, xu , p 21, Hoernle, IA, X, P 360; Guerinot, Bibliographie Jana, Int , p vil, and SO ON.
Charpentier, op cit, p. 125. "Not only is the number of years (155) allotted in the Gāthas to the reign of the Nandas unduly great, but also the introduction of Palaka, Lord of Aranti, in the chronology of the Magadha kings looks very suspicious"-Jacobi, op at, p 8
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