Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c12.s7.1.3

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.