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The Date of Mahâvîra
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Hemacandra (A.D. 1088-1172), who says that 155 years after the liberation of Mahâvîra, Candragupta become king (Sthaviravalicarita, Parisishtaparvan, VIII 339). As pointed out by Charpentier,11 who like Cunningham and Max Muller, believes that the Buddha's nirvana tock place in 477 B.C. (and not in 487 B.C. as we believe), this date has some good points in its favour
1. The Buddha (d 477 B.C.) and Mahâvîra (d. 467 B.C.) become contemporaries.
2. Ajatasatru becomes the contemporary of both the teachers.
3. This is in keeping with the Jain tradition of Hemacandra that there was a gap of 155 years between the death of Mahâvîra and the accession of Candragupta Maurya.
(Be it noted that according to the Jain tradition, the accession of Candragupta Maurya took place in 312 B.C., a date not regarded as correct by scholars for the accession of Candragupta Maurya.)
4. According to the Jain tradition, the Jain pontiff Sambhutavijaya died exactly in the year after Candragupta's accession, or 156 after Vira, which may after all perhaps be the very same year as Hemacandra says that the one hundred and fifty-fifth year had passed (gata). Bhadrabahu, the successor of Sambhutavijaya, died fifteen years later. All Jain traditions from Hemacandra downwards gives 170 after Vira as the year of Bhadrabahu's death. This would be 297 B.C. if the date 467 B.C. is accepted for Mahâvîra's death; and all Jain traditions also bring Bhadrabahu into the closest connection with Candragupta in whose reign the date 297 B.C. falls.
5. The Kalpasutra was finished 980 years after Mahâvîra, but in another recession the number is 993. The commentaries, all going back to the old curni, refer this date to four different events. One such event is the public recitation of the Kalpasutra before king Dhruvasena of Anandapura whose reign lasted from A D. 526 to A.D. 540. Thus we find a most remarkable coincidence, for 993-467 = 526, or just the year of Dhruvasena's accession to the throne of Valabhi.
6. The Jain creed is called in Buddhist literautre caturyama, 'consisting in four restrictions'. But Mahâvîra enforced five great
