Lord Mahavira and His Times

Author(s): Kailashchandra Jain
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

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Lord Mahāvīra and His Times
in the Pali scriptures, he considers it to be that of Gośāla at Sãvatthi, which the Bhagavatī Sutra also mentions as having been accompanied by quarrel and confusion. The Mahāparinibbāna Sutta records that the preparations for the campaign against the Vajjis were made in the last year of the Buddha's life while Mahāvīra was still alive during the course of war.
477 B.C.
JAMES HASTING1 tries to fix the date of Mahāvīra's Nirvāṇa in c. 477 or 476 B.G. He comes to this conclusion by combining the Jaina date of Chandragupta's accession to the throne 155 years after the Nirvāna with the historical date of the same event in 322 B.C.
484 B.C.
In his attempt to discuss the date of Gośāla's death, A.F.R. HOERNLE? also fixed the date of Mahavira's Nirvāna. He accepts 482 B.C. as the practically certain date of the Buddha's Nirvana. King Bimbisāra, the father and predecessor of Ajātaśatru, was murdered by his son eight years before the Nirvāṇa or in 490 B.C. A.F.R. Hoernle believes that for some years before this, Ajātasatru was the de facto ruler, and that the war took place, not in the year of his legal, but of his de facto accession, which cannot have been long before the murder of Bimbisāra. H. JACOBI's theory of the later date of Mahāvira's death he now rejects, in order to devise a chronological scheme according to which Mahāvīra may predeccase the Buddha; but the Bhagavatz tradition of the sixteen years interval between the deaths of Mahāvira and Gośāla hc acccpts without question. He therefore suggests 484 B.C. for the death of Mahāvīra and 500 B.C. for that of Gośāla and for the war and the de facto accession of Ajātaśatru.
486 B.C.
H.G. RAYCHAUDHURI suggests 478 B.C. or 486 B.C. and 536 B.C. as the probable dates of Mahāvira's Nirvana, according 1. Erg, Vol. vii, p. 467. 2. Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 260-61. 3. An Advanced flislory of India, p. 73.