Lord Mahavira and His Times

Author(s): Kailashchandra Jain
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

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Lord Mahāvīra and His Times.
The traditional chronology given in Merutunga's VichaȚaśreņī puts Mahāvīra's Nirvana 470 years before the Vikrama era. All the Jaina traditions assign 40 years of reign to Nahavāņa between the period of Mahavira's Nirvāṇa and Vikrama. This Nahaväna is generally identified with Naliapāna, the Mahākshatrapa of Kshaharāta family, who lived after the commencement of the Vikrama era. If we take out 40 years of Nahavāna from 470 years, the interval given in these traditions between Mahāvīra Nirvana and the commencement of the Vikrama era, the difference between these two important events will be 430 years. This will give 488 B.C. as the date of Mahāvīra Nirvana. This will place Malāvīra's death about a year before that of the Buddha who died in 487 B.C. These two dates will reconcile most of the Buddhist as well as the Jaina traditions about these two great religious teachers.
490 B.C.
Y. MISHRA? presupposes 487 B.C. as the date of Buddha's death, and then, by comparing the details of the lives of the Buddha and Mahavira, especially the places where they spent their rainy seasons, he comes to the conclusion that Mahāvira died in 490 B.C. In order to find out the date of that specific rainy season when Mahāvīra died, he consulted the lives of the Buddha and Mahāvīra, viz. Buddhacharjā (in Hindi) by RAHULA SANKRITYAYANA and framana Bhagvān Mahaurra by. RATNAPRABHA VIJAYA. In the Buddhacharzā, it is stated that Lord Buddha spent the 17th rainy season at Rājagrila, further in the Mahāsakuludāyi Sutta," it is said that on that particular occasion, both Buddha and Nigantha Nätaputta were present. Taking 567 B.C. as the date of the birth of the Budidha, this conies to 516 B.C. By taking 561 B.C. as the date of the birth of Mahāvīra, it becomes clear that lie spent his 16th rainy season in 516 B.C. at Rajagriha. In the rainy season of 513 B.C. also, both the Buddha and Mahavira were .at Rājagriha.
1. Y. MISĦRA: An Early History of Vaišãli, pp. 202-213. 2. Majjh, II. 3. 7,