________________
86
Lord Mahāvira and His Times
the end that 'by deducting 77 years and 7 months from this period of 683 years, we get 605 years and 5 months, which is the exact intervalbetween Mahāvīra’s death and the commencement of the Saka era. All these sources are in perfect agreement as to the fact that this succession lasted till 683 years after Mahāvīra's Nirvāṇa, that up to this time, the direct canonical knowledge, though gradually declining in volume, continued to be preserved in the memory of these Gurus, and that it was about this time that the redaction of the surviving canonical knowledge was undertaken and the Jaina canons for the first time appeared in book form.
The slight differences one notices in these various sources, relate only to certain names. Some sources also differ in the extent of knowledge preserved by groups V and VI. The Pațțāvalis of the Nandi Saṁgha, particularly its Prakrit Pattāvala, which is quite an old document, gives the total period for the 5 Gurus of group IV as 123 years, whereas the other sources give it as 220 or 222 years; and while this Patļāvali allots 99 years to group V, they allot 118 years to it. According to the Jaina traditions, Bhadrabāhu was the contemporary of Chandragupta Maurya (324-300 B.C.), but in the genealogy of the Pontiffs, he is allotted 365 B.C. K.C. Sastri? has tried to rectify this mistake of sixty years in the genealogical table of the Pontiffs.
4. There are also traditions which relate to Kalki who is believed to have flourished at about the close of the first millennium after Mahāvīra's death.2 In this connection, chronological lists of the ruling dynasties, particularly of Ujjayini, have been preserved for these one thousand years ending with Kalki's tyrannical rule. Kalki is identified with either Yaśodharman of the Aulikara dynasty of Mandsor or with Mihirakula of the Hūņa dynasty.3 It is more likely that he was Mihirakula.
5. Another tradition, which further conforms this date relates to the great schism in the Jaina Samgha. According
1. Faina Sāhitya Ka Itihāsa, pp. 356-369. 2. Tiloyapannati, Harivansa, Trilokasära, etc. 3, NR. PREMI: Jaina Sahitya Aura Itihasa, p. 20.
