Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c12.s7.1.2

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).