Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c12.s5.24

c12.s5.24

As Chandragupta's accession apparently took place between 326 and 312 B. C., the tradition recorded in Hemchandra's *Pariśishṭaparvan* would place the date of Mahāvīra'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 *Parinirvāṇa* of the Śākya sage is 486 B.C. (Cantonese tradition, Smith, EHI. 4th ed., 49). According to Ceylonese writers, Śākyamuni entered into *nirvāṇa* in the eighth year of Ajātaśatru (*Ajātasattuno vasse aṭṭhame muni nibbute, Mahāvaṁśa*, Ch. II). This would place the accession of the son of Bimbisāra in 493 B. C., if the Cantonese date for the *niravāṇa* of the Buddha is accepted. Jaina writers put the interval between Kūṇika'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 Mahāvīra 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 Kūṇika as the *rājā* of Champā, while the Buddhists begin their calculation from a later date when Ajātaśatru mounted the throne of Rājagṛiha. According to Buddhist tradition Vassakāra's visit to the Buddha in connection with the Vrijian incident took place a year before the *parinirvāṇa*. 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 can- not, however, be placed on the traditional chronology.