The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c11.25

c11.25

I do not believe that the date can be fixed with anything like certainty, and in opposition to the arguments in favour of 487 or 486 B. C. we now have the new reading of the Khāravela inscription which, if correct, obliges us to move back all the Saisunāga dates more than 50 years and therefore supports the Ceylon date for the death of Buddha, viz. 544 or 543 B. C. It may be argued that traditions preserved in Magadha should be more trustworthy than those recorded at a later date by monks in distant Ceylon: but there is ample evidence of the fact that Gautama Buddha was contemporary with both Bimbisāra or Srēnika and his son Ajātasatru or Kunika, and this being so, I feel compelled, until further light is thrown on the subject, to accept tentatively the earlier date, 543 B. C., based on the chronology disclosed by the Khāravela inscription.