Sramana 2016 04

Author(s): Shreeprakash Pandey, Rahulkumar Singh, Omprakash Singh
Publisher: Parshvanath Vidhyashram Varanasi

Page 50

Reconsidering the Date of the Nirvāṇa of Lord Mahāvīra
Prof. Sagarmal Jain The Jaina writers usually, after equating their dating with the Saka era, have concluded that after a period of 605 years and 5 months of the Nirvāṇa of Mahāvīra, Saka became the king.' On the basis of this postulate, even today, the date of the Nirvāņa of Mahāvīra is held to 527 B.C. Among the modern Jaina writers, Pt. Jugal Kishor Mukhtar (1956: 26-56), of the Digambara sect, and Muni Sri Kalyana Vijaya (1966: 159), of the Svetāmbara sect, have also held 527 B.C. to be the year of the Vīra Nirvāņa. From about 7th century A.D., with a few exceptions, this date has gained recognition. In Svetāmbara tradition, for the first time in the Prakīrņaka entitled “Titthogālī,'2 and in the Digambara tradition, for the first time in Tiloyapaņņatti,
it is clearly mentioned that 605 years and 5 months after the Nirvāņa of Mahāvīra, Saka became king. Both the texts were composed between 600 and 700 A.D. To the best of my knowledge, none of the earlier texts ever showed the difference between the Nirvāņà of Mahāvīra and the Saka era. But this much is definite that from about 600-700 A.D., it has been a common notion that the Nirvāņa of Mahāvīra took place in the year 605 before Śaka. Prior to it, in the Sthavirāvali of Kalpasūtra and in the Vācaka genealogy of the Nandīsūtra, the reference to the hierarchy of Mahāvīra is found, but there is no mention of the chronology of the ācāryas: therefore, it is difficult to fix a date of the Nirvāṇa of Mahāvīra on the basis of these texts. In the Kalpasūtrat only this much is mentioned that now 980 years (according to another version 993 years) have passed since the Vira Nirvāņa. This fact makes only this much clear that after 980 or 993 years of Vīra Nirvāņa, Ācārya Devarddhigaại Kșamāśramaņa finally edited this last exposition of the present Canon. Similarly, in Sthānānga (7: 41), Bhagavati Sūtra (9: 222229) and Āvaśyaka Niryukti (778-783), along with the reference to Nihnavas, a reference as to after how much time of Mahāvīra's lifetime his Nirvāṇa took place is found. Here only there are some clues by comparing which with the external evidences of definite date, we can contemplate the date of Nirvāņa of Mahāvīra.