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214 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA
Atthakatha gives an account of the Machiavellian tactics 1 adopted by Magadhan statesmen headed by Vassakara to sow the seeds of dissension among the Vaišalians and thus bring about their downfall.2
The absorption of Vaisali and a part at least of Kasi as a result of the Kosalan and Vajjian wars probably brought the aspiring ruler of Magadha face to face with the equally ambitious sovereign of Avanti. We have already referred to a statement of the Majjhima Nikaya that on one occasion
evam cha śri Mahavira mukter varshaśate gate pañchapanchaśadadhike Chandragupto'bhavan nṛipaḥ. Sthaviravalicharita, Parisishṭaparva, VIII. 339.
As Chandragupta's accession apparently took place between 326 and 312 B. C., the tradition recorded in Hemchandra's Parisishṭaparvan would place the date of Mahavira's death between 481 and 467 B.C. But early Buddhist texts (Dialogues, III, pp. 111, 203; Majjhima, II, 243) make the famous Jaina teacher predecease the Buddha, and the latest date assigned by reliable tradition to the Parinirvāna of the Sakya sage is 486 B.C. (Cantonese tradition, Smith, EHI, 4th ed.,. 49). According to Ceylonese writers, Sakyamuni entered into nirvana in the eighth year of Ajataśatru (Ajatasattuno vasse aṭṭhame muni nibbute, Mahāvamsa, Ch. II). This would place the accession of the son of Bimbisara in 493 B.C., if the Cantonese date for the nirvana of the Buddha is accepted. Jaina writers put the interval between Kūņika's accession and the death of their master at 16 and 'x' years. According to Buddhist chroniclers the interval would be less than 8 years as Mahavira predeceased the Buddha. The divergent data of the Jaina and Buddhist texts can only be reconciled if we assume that the former take as their starting point the date of the accession of Kuņika as the raja of Champā, while the Buddhists begin their calculation from a later date when Ajataśatru mounted the throne of Rajagriha. According to Buddhist tradition Vassakāra's visit to the Buddha in connection with the Vṛijian incident took place a year before the parinirvana. The destruction of the Vriji power took place some three years later on (DPPN, I. 33-34) i.e. c. 484 B.C. Too much reliance cannot, however, be placed on the traditional chronology.
1 Diplomacy (upalapana) and disunion (mithubheda), DPPN, II. 846; JRAS, 1931. Cf. Gradual Sayings, IV. 12. "The Vajjians cannot be overcome in battle, but only by cunning, by breaking up their alliance."
2 Cf. Modern Review, July, 1919, pp. 55-56. According to the Arya Manjuśri-Mula-Kalpa (Vol. I, ed. Ganapati Sastri, pp. 603 f) the dominions of Ajätasatru embraced, besides Magadha, Anga, Vārāṇasi (Benares), and Vaisali in the north. In the opinion of Dr. Jayaswal the Parkham statue is a contemporary portrait of king Ajataśatru. But this view has not met with general acceptance.
