The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c11.18

c11.18

² Burgess, *Ind. Ant.*, ii. 139. Hoernle (ibid. xx, 360) discusses the contradictory Jain dates, and observes that although the Digambara and Śvetāmbara sects agree in placing the death of Mahāvīra 470 years before Vikrama, whose *era* begins in 58 B. C., the Digambaras reckon back from the birth, and the Śvetāmbaras from the accession of Vikrama. The books indicate that 551, or 543, or 527 B. C. may be regarded as the traditional date. See also ibid. ii, 363; ix, 158; xi, 245; xiii, 279; xxi, 57; and xxiii, 169, for further discussion of Jain chronology. Note especially the statements that Sthūlabhadra, ninth successor of Mahāvīra, who was *mantrin* of the ninth Nanda, died either 215 or 219 years after the death of Mahāvīra, the same year in which Nanda was slain by Chandragupta (ibid. xi, 246). This latter event having occurred in or about 322 B. C., it is clear that 527 B. C. offers a more suitable basis for calculating the date of Sthūlabhadra's death than the date 467 B. C., proposed by Charpentier. Mērutuṅga dates Pushyamitra, who came to the throne *cir.* 185 B. C., in the period 323–53 after Mahāvīra (Weber, *Sacred Lit. of the Jains*, p. 133).