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92
Lord Mahâvîra
community after his death as having been elicited by the report of the dissensions in the community of Mahâvîra, whence it is deduced that this report is a later invention. But this reasoning rests on several unproved assumptions. (1) That the Mahaparinibbana Suttanta is older than the other three Suttantas is assumed without any arguments being adduced, and its age certainly is far from obvious. On the contrary, it apears to be a very sophisticated and worked up account of the last days of the Buddha, and in fact it is not open to Professor Jacobi to contend for its early date. He himself shortly afterwards (p. 562) refers to the account given in that text of the plans of Ajatacatru for the subjection of the Vrjis, and points out that the undertaking was one demanding careful planning.
He adds: “Uber die von ihm getroffenen Massnahmen enthalt das M.P.S. Angaben, die aber in viel spaterer Zeit entstanden und darum so gut wie wertlos sind.” Very probably Professor Jacobi's view of the statements of the Suttanta is correct; but it is quite impossible to hold this view of it, and then to ask us to accept the silence of the Suttanta as entitling us to negate the evidence of three Suttantas, two of which at least may well be older than the Mahaparinibbana Suttanta. (2) Moreover, the argument is essentially one ex silentio and there is no form of contention more dangerous. It would be necessary, in order to give it weight, to show that the omission of the episode of the Buddha's views on hearing of Mahâvîra's death is inexplicable, if its occurrence were widely believed in Buddhist circles. No such proof, however, is possible. Professor Jacobi's view appears to be that the episode of the hearing of the death of Mahâvîra took place during the last journey of the Buddha en route to Kusinara, and that, therefore, any full account of his last days must necessarily include the episode in question. If this view were sound, there might be something to say for his contention, though the argument would be far from conclusive. But there seems no ground whatever to assume that the Buddhists thoughts that the news of Mahâvîra's death came to the Buddha just before his own Nirvana. The Samagama Suttanta has nothing to suggest such a conclusion. On the contrary the Buddha is at Samagama when he hears of the death of Mahâvîra at Pava' and equally in the other two Suttantas the Buddha's utterances are not connected with his
