Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

Author(s): J C Sikdar
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 516

Sec. II]
STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SUTRA
491
Maurya Candragupta became king one hundred and fifty-five years after the liberation of Lord Mahāvīra.
So according to this tradition the liberation may be assigned between 481 king Candragupta ascended the throne 312 B. C.
date of the Master's and 467 B.C., because at a date between 326
But the Buddhist works record the demise of Lord Mahāvīra before that of Lord Buddha as already mentioned.
According to the cantonese tradition the Parinirvāṇa of the Šakya sage took place in 486 B. C.', while the Ceylonese writers record this event of Parinirvana in the eighth regnal year of Kuņika-Ajātaśatru."
On the basis of the Cantonese date of Lord Buddha's decease, the date of accession of Ajātaśatru would fall in 493 B.C.
A gap of sixteen and odd years is found to exist between the date of accession of Kuņika-Ajataśatru and that of the demise of Lord Mahāvīra, while according to the Buddhist works it will be less than eight years on the ground that the Master died before the Blessed one.
A reconciliation of the divergent views on the chronology of Lord Mahāvīra as recorded by the Jaina and Buddhist works can be made, if it is supposed that the former accepts the date of accession of Kūņika as the king of Campa as the starting point and the latter make their calculation from a date of his actual ascendancy to the throne of Rajagṛha.
Dr. Hiralal Jain has tried to throw light upon the chronology of Lord Mahāvīra in his article on 'Date of Mahavīra's Nirvana" to show that "all the Jaina traditions boil down to this that there were 155 years from Mahāvīra's Nirvana to Candragupta's coronation, 410 years up to Vikrama's coronation, and 470 years up to Vikrama's death, and that the Vikrama Era
1 Early History of India of V. Smith, fourth Ed. 179. Mahavamsa, Ch. II.
Nagapur University Journal, December, 1940. No. 6. Date of Mahavira's Nirvana by Dr. Hiralal Jain, pp. 50-54.