Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c12.s7.1

Language: English

c12.s7.1.1

There is considerable disagreement between the *Purāṇas* and the Ceylonese chronicles regarding the chronology of the kings of the Bimbisārian (or Haryaṅka) and Śaiśunāga dynasties. Even Smith and Pargiter are not disposed to accept all the dates given in the *Purāṇas*.¹ According to Ceylonese tradition Bimbisāra ruled for fifty-two years, Ajātaśatru for 32 years, Udāyī for 16 years, Anuruddha and Muṇḍa for 8 years, Nāga-Dāsaka for 24 years, Śiśunāga for 18 years, Kālāśoka for 28 years and Kālāśoka's sons for 22 years. Gautama Buddha died in the eighth year of Ajātaśatru,² *i.e.*, in the (52+8=) 60th year (*i.e.*, a little more than 59 years) after the accession of Bimbisāra. The event happened in 544 B.C. according to a Ceylonese reckoning, and in 486 B.C. according to a Cantonese tradition of 489 A.D., based on a 'dotted record' brought to China by Saṁgha-bhadra. The date 544 B.C. can, however, hardly be reconciled with a *gāthā* transmitted in the Ceylonese chronicles which states that Priyadarśana (Aśoka Maurya) was consecrated 218 years after the Buddha had passed into *nirvāṇa*.³ This fact and certain Chinese and Chola synchronisms led Geiger and a few other scholars to think that the era of 544 B.C. is a comparatively modern fabrication and that the true date of the death of the Buddha is 483 B.C.¹—a result closely approaching that to which the Cantonese tradition leads us.

c12.s7.1.2

The Chola synchronisms referred to by these scholars are, however, not free from difficulties, and it has been pointed out by Geiger himself that the account in Chinese annals of an embassy which Mahānāman, king of Ceylon, sent to the emperor of China in 428 A.D., does not speak in favour of his revised chronology. The traditional date of Menander which is C. 500 A.B., works out more satisfactorily with a *Nirvāṇa* era of 544 B.C., than with an era of 483 or 486 B.C. In regard to the Maurya period, however, calculations based on the traditional Ceylonese reckoning will place the accession of Chandragupta Maurya in 544-162 = 382 B.C., and the coronation of Aśoka Maurya in 544-218 = 326 B.C. These results are at variance with the evidence of Greek writers and the testimony of the inscriptions of Aśoka himself. Classical writers represent Chandragupta as a contemporary of Alexander (326 B.C.) and of Seleukos (312 B.C.). Aśoka in his thirteenth Rock Edict speaks of certain Hellenistic kings as alive. As one at least of these rulers died not later than 258 B.C. (250 B.C. according to some authorities) and as rescripts on morality began to be written when Aśoka was anointed twelve years, his consecration could not have taken place after 269 B.C. (261 B.C. according to some).

c12.s7.1.3

The date cannot be pushed back beyond 277 B.C., because his grandfather Chandragupta must have ascended the throne after 326 B.C., as he met Alexander in that year as an ordinary individual and died after a reign of 24 years, and the next king Bindusāra, the father and immediate predecessor of Aśoka, ruled for at least 25 years. 326 B.C.-49=277 B.C. Aśoka's coronation, therefore, took place between 277 and 261 B.C., and as the event happened, according to the old *Gāthā* recorded by the Ceylonese Chroniclers, 218 years after the *parinirvāṇa* of the Buddha, the date of the Great Decease should be placed between 495 and 479 B.C. The result accords not with the Ceylonese date 544 B.C., but with the Cantonese date 486 B.C., and Geiger's date 483 B.C., for the *parinirvāṇa*. The Chinese account of embassies which King Meghavarṇa sent to Samudra Gupta, and King Kia-Che (Kassapa) sent to China in 527 A.D., also speaks in favour of the date 486 B.C., or 483 B.C., for the Great Decease. Geiger's date, however, is not recognised by reliable tradition. The same remark applies to the date (Tuesday, 1 April, 478 B.C.) preferred by L. D. Swami Kannu Pillai.¹ The Cantonese date may, therefore, be accepted as a working hypothesis for the determination of the chronology of the early dynasties of Magadha.

c12.s7.1.4

The date of Bimbisāra's accession, according to this reckoning, would fall in or about 486+59=545 B.C., which is very near to the starting point of the traditional Ceylonese *Nirvāṇa* era of 544 B.C. 'The current name of an era is no proof of origins.' It is not altogether improbable that the Buddhist reckoning of Ceylon originally started from the coronation of Bimbisāra and was later on confounded with the era of the Great Decease.