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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
NOTES
283
reign from 88 to 28 in a single manuscript of a particular Purāṇa is unavailing as a proof of authenticity and cogency of the tradition.
We cannot, however, help appreciating the general tenor of Dr. Raychaudhuri's arguments persuading us to assign Khāravela's accession to the second quarter of the 1st century A.D. by placing the commencement of the Sātavāhana rule in 27 B.C., identifying Satakarņi of the HathiGumphā text with the third king of the Sātavāhana dynasty' and relegating King Bșhaspatimitra of Magadha to a neo-Mitra dynasty.
This chronological conclusion may derive support from a few collateral evidences, wbich are as follows:
(1) The style of the Hāthi-Gumpha text is closely similar and slightly anterior to that of the Milinda-Pañha which is one of the extra-canonical! Buddhist texts quoted by Buddhaghoşa in bis commentaries (ante, pp. 172), which, in its turn, presupposes all the Pāli canonical texts as we now have them,—the texts which were committed to writing during the reign of King Vattagāmani towards the close of the 1st century B.C., and which according to a tradition embedded in it, was not compiled earlier than 500 years from the Buddha's demise,- an event placed now-a-days in 483 or 484 B.C.: The Milinda-Papiha was compiled when the memory of King Milinda-Menander was still green in India with that of his courtiers Anantakāya-Antiochus and Damayanta-Demetrios, his capital Sāgala or sākala, and his birthplace Alasandadipa (Alexandria). The political position of the Greco. Bactrian king is well brought out in a passage in which he is represented as comparing himself to a lion in a golden cage surrounded by many enemies. 4 Just as the authenticity of the tradition about the compilation of the Katbāyatthu as a Pāli canonical text in the 18th year of Asoka's reign and 236 years after the Buddha's demise 6 may be proved by the close
1. According to the Parāṇas, Simuka, the first Sātavahana king, reigned for 10, Krsna, the second king, for 10 or 18, and Sri-Satakarņi, the third king, for 10 years.
2, 3. Geiger's Translation of the Mahāvamsa, Introduction.
4. Trenckner's Milinda-Patiha, p. 88 : Seyyathä pi scho migarājā suvanna-pañjare pakkhitto bahimukho yeva hoti, evam eva kho' ham kiñcapi agāram ajjhāpasāmi bahimukho yeva acchāmi.......bahu me paccatthikā.
5. Trenckner's Milinda-Pañiha, p. 13; Buddhaghoşa's Atthasālipi, p. 6, wrongly places the event 218 years, while the Mahāvamsa (V. 278-280) rightly places it 236 years, after the Buddha's demise.
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