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Lord Mahavira and His Times
B.C. 544 or 543 as the date of Buddha's demise has been questioned by modern scholars who propose either 486 B.C. or 484 B.C. as the correct date. The figure 544 or 543 is accounted for as the date of the accession of Śreņika Bimbisāra. Similarly, the figure 527 is accounted for as the date of the attainment of Jinahood by Mahāvira. Accepting this date of Mahāvīra's Kevaliship, one has to compute the date of his birth as B.C. 570, and that of his demise as B.C. 498. 545 B.C.
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K.P. JAYASWAL fixed the date of Mahavira's Nirvāņa in 545 B.C. His main argument was that since according to some Jaina Paṭṭāvalis, it was the interval between Mahavira's Nirvana and Vikrama's birth, and not his accession, which is said to have been 470 years, and since Vikrama ascended the throne and started his era at the age of 18 in 57 B.C., Mahāvira's date should be pushed further back by 18 years. He tried to corroborate his theory by a statement of some of the other Paṭṭāvalis which give 219 years as the interval between Mahāvira and the accession of Chandragupta Maurya, which according to him is otherwise fixed in 325 B.C. He also tried to reconcile his chronology based upon the Jaina sources with the Puranic traditions, identified Vikrama with King Pulumavi, the son of Gautmiputra Satakarņi, and fixed the Buddha's Nirvana in 544 B.C.1
437 B.C.
S.V. VENKATESVARA puts forth 437 B.C. as the date of Mahavira's Nirvana. Believing that the Buddha died sometime between 485 and 453 B.C., and that he could not have. died after Mahāvīra, this scholar surmises that 470 years' tradition relates to the Ananda Vikrama era of 33 A.D.2
CRITICISM OF THE ABOVE THEORIES
Although some of the theories set forth above are well reasoned and convincing, they present some serious difficulties.
1. JBORS, 1, Pt. I, pp. 99-101.
2. JRAS, 1917, pp. 122-130.
