Manual of Indian Buddhism c7.s2.41

c7.s2.41

If we wish to weigh against each other the value of the S. and that of the N. sources, we must begin with leaving out of the reckoning all unwarranted additions, either by the Simhalese or by others. By so doing and by waiving points of secondary importance, we perceive that the difference turns about ten years, the P. canon fixing the Council at Vaiśālī at 100 years after Nirvāṇa, whereas most N. traditions give 110 years. Both dates are inadmissible, and for the same reason: the impossible age of the actors. Both the P. canon and the Vinayakṣudraka, as well as Huen Thsang leave us in the dark about the king in whose reign the second Council took place. That silence has given rise to interminable controversies on the date of Buddha's death⁶. According to the chronology adopted by the Simhalese, the king reigning 100 years after Buddha's death was a certain Kāla Aśoka, whereas the N. Buddhists almost universally represent Aśoka the Maurya as having ascended the throne a century or thereabouts after Buddha's Nirvāṇa⁷. It would be very convenient if we could eliminate the difficulty by asserting — as has been done — that the N. Buddhists confounded two kings of the same name. Such an assertion is easy enough, but to make it good would be more difficult. In the first place, we should not speak of an involuntary confusion, for the all but general view of the N. Buddhists is intimately connected with the whole system of chronology. The Sthavira Yaśas is most decidedly and deliberately represented as a contemporary of Dharma Aśoka¹. There can be no doubt about his identity with the Yaśas of the Vaiśālī Council. For he declares to Aśoka the Maurya that he is the oldest remaining of the Disciples of the Buddha, Piṇḍola Bhāradvāja alone excepted. The untrustworthiness of the tale remains the same, whether Yaśas showed his activity 100 years after Buddha's Nirvāṇa in the reign of a King Kāla Aśoka, or of another King Dharma Aśoka. Where two accounts are equally absurd, there is no reason to give a marked preference to either². Under such circumstances any decisive choice is more a matter of taste or fancy, than of science, specially as we find no support in independent, Brahmanic sources³.