5. Chronology

In order to bring the Council of Vesālī in connection with the chronology of the world, we must follow the Buddhist historians for another century. One hundred and eighteen years after the Council of Vesālī they place the anointment of King Aśoka, during whose reign a Third Council, under the presidency of Tissa Moggaliputta, took place at Pāṭaliputta, the new capital adopted by that king, instead of Rājagaha and Vesālī. This Council is chiefly known to us through the writings of the southern Buddhists (Dīpavaṃsa, Mahāvaṃsa, and Buddhaghosa), who belong to the school of Moggaliputta (Theravāda or Vibhajjavāda), which ruled supreme at Pāṭaliputta, while Upagupta, the chief authority of the northern Buddhists, is altogether ignored in the Pāli chronicles.

Now it is well known that Aśoka was the grandson of Candagutta, and Candagutta the contemporary of Alexander the Great. Here we see land, and I may refer to my History of Sanskrit Literature, published in 1859, for the process by which the storm-tossed ship of Indian chronology has been landed in the harbour of real historical chronology. We are told by the monks of the Mahāvihāra in Ceylon that Aśoka was crowned, according to their computation, 146 + 18 years before the accession of Duṭṭhagāmani, 161 B. C. , i. e. 325 B. C. ; that between his coronation and his father’s death four years had elapsed (329 B. C. ); that his father Bindusāra had reigned twenty-eight years^[1] (357-329 B. C. ), and Bindusāra’s father, Kandagutta,

[1. Mahāvaṃsa, p. 21. ]

p. xxxvi twenty-four years (381-357). As we know that Candagutta, whom the Ceylonese place 381-357 B. C. , was king of India after Alexander’s conquest, it follows that Ceylonese chronology is wrong by more than half a century. For reasons stated in my History of Sanskrit Literature, I fix the exact fault in Ceylonese chronology as sixty-six years, assigning to Candagutta the dates 315-291, instead of 381-357. This gives us 291-263 for Bindusāra, 259 for Aśoka’s abhisheka; 259 + 118 = 377 for the Council of Vesālī, and 377 + 100 = 477 for Buddha’s death, instead of 543 B. C. ^[1]

These dates are, of course, approximate only, and they depend on one or two points on which people may differ. But, with that reservation, I see no ground whatever for modifying the chronological system which I put forward more than twenty years ago. Professor Westergaard and Professor Kern, who have since suggested different dates for the death of Buddha, do not really differ from me in principle, but only in their choice of one or the other alternative, which I readily admit as possible, but not as more certain than my own. Professor Westergaard^[2], for instance, fixes Buddha’s death at 368 (370), instead of 477. This seems a wide difference, but it is so in appearance only.

Following Justinus, who says that Sandrokyptos^[3] had conquered the empire of India at the time when Seleucus laid the foundations of his own greatness, I had accepted 315^[4], half-way between the murder of Porus and the taking of Babylon by Seleucus, as the probable beginning

[1. According to Bigandet, Life of Gaudama, p. 361, the era of Buddha’s death was introduced by Ajātaśatru, at the conclusion of the First Council, and began in the year 46 of the older Eetzana era (p. 12). See, however, Rhys Davids, Num. Orient. vi, p. 38. In the Kāraṇḍa-vyūha, p. 96, a date is given as 300 after the Nirvāṇa, 'tṛtīye varshaśate gate mama parinirvṛtasya. ' In the Aśoka-avadāna we read, mama nirvṛtim ārabhya satavarshagata Upagupto nāma bhikshur utpatsyati.

2. Über Buddha’s Todesjahr (1860), 1862.

3. The Greek name Sandrokyptus shows that the Pāli corruption Candagutta was not yet the recognised name of the king.

4. Mr. Rhys Davids accepts 315 B. C. as the date when, after the murder of king Nanda, Candragupta stept into the vacant throne, though he had begun to count his reign seven or eight years before. Buddhism, p. 22O. ]

p. xxxvii of Candragupta’s reign. Westergaard prefers 320 as a more likely date for Candragupta, and therefore places the death of the last Nanda and the beginning of Aśoka’s royal pretensions 268. Here there is a difference between him and me of five years, which depends chiefly on the view we take as to the time when Seleucus really laid what Justinus calls the foundation of his future greatness. Secondly, Westergaard actually adopts the idea, at which I only hinted as possible, that the southern Buddhists made two Aśokas out of one, and two Councils out of one. Trusting in the tradition that 118 years elapsed between Buddha’s death and the Council under Aśoka (at Pāṭaliputra), and that the Council took place in the king’s tenth year (as was the case with the imaginary Kālāśoka’s Council), he gets 268 - 10 = 258 as the date of the Council, and 368 or 370 as the date of Buddha’s death^[1].

The two points on which Westergaard differs from me, seem to me questions which should be kept before our mind in dealing with early Buddhist history, but which, for the present at least, admit of no definite solution.

The same remark seems to me to apply to the calculations of another eminent Sanskrit scholar, Professor Kern^[2]. He lays great stress on the general untrustworthiness of Indian chronology, and I am the last to differ from him on that point. He then places the beginning of Candragupta’s reign in 322 B. C. Allowing twenty-four years to him and twenty-eight to his son Bindusāra, he places the beginning of Aśoka’s reign in 270. Aśoka’s inscriptions would fall about 258. As Aśoka reigned thirty-six or thirty-seven years, his death would fall in 234 or 233 B. C. Like Westergaard, Professor Kern too eliminates Kālāśoka, as a kind of chronological Aśoka, and the Council of Vaiśālī, and therefore places Buddha’s death, according to the northern tradition, 100 or 110 years before Dharmāśoka, i. e. 270 + 100 or + 110 = 370 or 380^[3]; while, according to the southern

[1. Westergaard. loc. cit. p. 128.

2. Jaartelling der Zuidelijke Buddhisten, 1873.

3. See Professor Kern’s remark in Indian Antiquary, 1874, p. 79. ]

p. xxxviii tradition, that 118 years elapsed between Aśoka’s accession and Buddha’s death, the Ceylonese monks would seem originally to have retained 270 + 118^[1] = 388 B. C. as Buddha’s Nirvāṇa, a date which, as Professor Kern holds, happens to coincide with the date assigned to the death of Mahāvira, the founder of the Jaina religion.

Here we see again that the moot point is the beginning of Candragupta’s reign in accordance with the information supplied by Greek historians. Professor Kern places it in 322, Westergaard in 320, I myself in 315. That difference once granted, Dr. Kern’s reasoning is the same as my own. According to the traditions which we follow, Buddha’s death took place 100, 110, 118, or 228 years before Aśoka. Hence Professor Westergaard arrives at 368 or 370 B. C. , Professor Kern at 370 (380) or 388 B. C. , I myself at 477 B. C. Every one of these dates is liable to certain objections, and if I prefer my own date, 477 B. C. , it is simply because it seems to me liable to neither more nor less reservations than those of Professor Westergaard and Professor Kern, and because, so long as we always remember the grounds of our differences, namely, the beginning of Candragupta’s reign, and the additional century, every one of these dates furnishes a good hypothesis to work on, until we can arrive at greater certainty in the ancient chronology of India. To my mind all dates beyond Candragupta are as yet purely tentative, resting far more on a chronological theory than on actual tradition; and though I do not doubt the historical chatacter of the Council of Vaiśālī, I look upon the date assigned to it, on the authority of the Dīpavaṃsa and Mahāvaṃsa, as, for the present, hypothetical only.

[1. When Professor Kern states that the Mahāvaṃsa (p. 22) places the Third Council 218 years after Buddha’s death, this is not so. Aśoka’s abhisheka takes place in that year. The prophecy that a calamity would befall their religion, 118 years after the Second Council (Mahāvaṃsa, p. 28), does not refer to the Council, but to Candāśoka’s accession, 477 - 218 = 259 B. C. ]

p. xxxix

B. C.
557.	Buddha born.
552.	Bimbisāra born.
537-485.	Bimbisāra, 5 years younger than Buddha, was 15 when crowned, 30 or 31 when he met Buddha in 522.
485-453.	Ajātaśatru (4 × 8 years).
477.	Buddha’s death (485 - 8 = 477).
477.	COUNCIL AT RĀJAGṚHA under Kāśyapa, Ānanda, and Upāli.
453-437.	Udāyibhadra (2 × 8 years).
437-429.	{	Anuruddhaka (8 years).
		Muṇḍa (at Pāṭaliputra).
429-405.	Nāgadāśaka (3 × 8 years).
405-387.	Siśunāga (at Vaiśālī).
387-359.	Kālāśoka.
377.	COUNCIL AT VAIŚĀLĪ, under Yaśas and Revata, a disciple of Ānanda (259 + 118 = 377).
359-337.	Ten sons of Kālāśoka (22 years).
337-315.	Nine Nandas (22 years); the last, Dhanananda, killed by Kāṇakya.
315-291.	Candragupta (477 - 162 = 315; 3 × 8 years)[1].
291-263.	Bindusāra.
263-259.	Aśoka, sub-king at Ujjayinī, as pretender—his brothers killed.
259.	Aśoka anointed at Pāṭaliputra (477 - 218 = 259).
256.	Aśoka converted by Nigrodha (D. V. VI, 18).
256-253.	Building of Vihāras, Sthūpas, etc.
255.	Conversion of Tishya (M. V. p. 34).
253.	Ordination of Mahendra (born 477 - 204 = 273).
251.	Tishya and Sumitra die (D. V. VII, 32).
242.	COUNCIL AT PĀṬALIPUTRA (259 - 17 = 242; 477 - 236 = 271), under Tishya Maudgalīputra (477 - 236 = 241; D. V. VII, 37).
241.	Mahendra to Ceylon.
222.	Aśoka died (259 - 37 = 222).
193.	Mahendra died (D. V. XVII, 93).
161.	Duṭṭhagāmani.
88-76.	Vattagāmani, canon reduced to writing.
A. D.
400.	Dīpavaṃsa.
420.	Buddhaghosha, Pāli commentaries.
459-477.	Mahāvaṃsa.

[1. Westergaard, 320-296; Kern, 322-298. ]

p. xl

Though the preceding table, embodying in the main the results at which I arrived in my History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, still represents what I hold to be true or most probable with respect to Indian chronology, previous to the beginning of our era, yet I suppose I may be expected to say here a few words on the two latest attempts to fix the date of Buddha’s death; the one by Mr. Rhys Davids in the Numismata Orientalia, Part VI, 1877, the other by Dr. Bühler in the Indian Antiquary, 1877 and 1878^[1]. Mr. Rhys Davids, to whom we owe so much for the elucidation of the history of Buddha’s religion, accepts Westergaard’s date for the beginning of Candragupta’s reign, 320 B. C. , instead of 322 (Kern), 315 (myself); and as he assigns (p. 41) to Bindusāra 25 years instead of 28 (Mahāvaṃsa, p. 21), he arrives at 268 as the year of Aśoka’s coronation^[2]. He admits that the argument derived from the mention of the five foreign kings in one of Aśoka’s inscriptions, dated the twelfth year of his reign, is too precarious to enable us to fix the date of Aśoka’s reign more definitely, and though, in a general way, that inscription confirms the date assigned by nearly all scholars to Aśoka in the middle of the third century B. C. , yet there is nothing in it that Aśoka might not have written in 247 quite as well as in 258-261. What chiefly distinguishes Mr. Rhys Davids' chronology from that of his predecessors is the shortness of the period between Aśoka’s coronation and Buddha’s death. On the strength of an examination of the list of kings and the list of the so-called patriarchs, he reduces the traditional 218 years to 140 or 150, and thus arrives at 412 B. C. as the probable beginning of the Buddhist era.

In this, however, I cannot follow him, but have to follow Dr. Bühler. As soon as I saw Dr. Bühler’s first essay on the Three New Edicts of Aśoka, I naturally felt delighted at the unexpected confirmation which he furnished of the date which I had assigned to Buddha’s death, 477 B. C. And though I am quite aware of the

[1. Three New Edicts of Aśoka, Bombay, 1877; Second Notice, Bombay, 1878.

2. Mr. Rhys Davids on p. 50 assigns the 35 years of Bindusāra rightly to the Purāṇas, the 38 years to the Ceylon Chronicles. ]

p. xli danger of unexpected confirmations of one’s own views, yet, after carefully weighing the objections raised by Mr. Rhys Davids and Professor Pischel against Dr. Bühler’s arguments, I cannot think that they have shaken Dr. Bühler’s position. I fully admit the difficulties in the phraseology of these inscriptions: but I ask, Who could have written these inscriptions, if not Aśoka? And how, if written by Aśoka, can the date which they contain mean anything but 256 years after Buddha’s Nirvāṇa? These points, however, have been argued in so masterly a manner by Dr. Bühler in his 'Second Notice,' that I should be afraid of weakening his case by adding anything of my own, and must refer my readers to his 'Second Notice. ' Allowing that latitude which, owing to the doubtful readings of MSS. , and the constant neglect of odd months, we must allow in the interpretation of Buddhist chronology, Aśoka is the only king we know of who could have spoken of a thirty-fourth year since the beginning of his reign and since his conversion to Buddhism. And if he calls that year, say the very last of his reign (212 B. C. ), 256 after the departure of the Master, we have a right to say that as early as Aśoka’s time, Buddha was believed to have died about 477 B. C. Whether the inscriptions have been accurately copied and rightly read is, however, a more serious question, and the doubts raised by Dr. Oldenberg (Mahāvagga, p. xxxviii) make a new collation of the originals absolutely indispensable, before we can definitely accept Dr. Bühler’s interpretation.

I cannot share Dr. Bühler’s opinion^[1] as to the entire worthlessness of the Jaina chronology in confirming the date of Buddha’s death. If the Śvetāmbara Jainas place the death of Mahāvīra 470 before Vikramāditya, i. e. 56 B. C. + 470 = 526 B. C. ,and the Digambaras 605, i. e. 78 A. D. deducted from 605 = 527 B. C. , this so far confirms Dr. Bühler’s and Dr. Jacobi’s brilliant discovery that Mahāvīra was the same as Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta, who died at Pāvā during Buddha’s lifetime^[2]. Most likely 527 is too early a date, while another

[1. Three Edicts. p. 21; Second Notice. pp. 9, 10.

2. See Jacobi, Kalpa-sūtra of Bhadrabāhu, and Oldenberg, Zeitschrift der D. M. G. , XXXIV, p. 749. ]

p. xlii tradition fixing Mahāvira’s death 155 years before Candragupta^[1], 470 B. C. , is too late. Yet they both show that the distance between Aśoka (259-222 B. C. ), the grandson of Candragupta (315-291 B. C. ), and the contemporaries of Buddha was by the Jainas also believed to be one of two rather than one century.

When I saw that the date of Buddha’s death, 477 B. C. , which in my History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature (1859) I had myself tried to support by such arguments as were then accessible, had received so powerful a support by the discovery of the inscriptions of Sahasrām, Rūpnāth, and Bairāt, due to General Cunningham, who had himself always been an advocate of the date 477 B. C. , and through their careful decipherment by Dr. Bühler, I lost no time in testing that date once more by the Dīpavaṃsa, that Ceylonese chronicle having lately become accessible through Dr. Oldenberg’s edition and translation^[2]. And here I am able to say that, before having read Dr. Bühler’s Second Notice, I arrived, though by a somewhat different way, at nearly the same conclusions as those so well worked out by Dr. Bühler in his restoration of the Episcopal Succession (therāvali) of the Buddhists, and therefore feel convinced that, making all such allowances as the case requires, we know now as much of early Buddhist chronology as could be known at the time of Aśoka’s Council, 242 B. C.

Taking the date of Buddha’s death 477 B. C. for granted, I found that Upāli, who rehearsed the Vinaya at the First Council, 477 B. C. , had been in orders sixty years in the twenty-fourth year of Ajātaśatru, i. e. 461 B. C. , which was the sixteenth year A. B. He must therefore^[3] have been born in 541 B. C. , and he died 447 B. C. , i. e. thirty years A. D. , at the age of 94. This is said to have been the sixth year of Udāyi, and so it is, 453 - 6 = 447 B. C.

In the year 461 B. C. Dāśaka received orders from Upāli, who was then 80 years of age; and when Dāśaka had been

[1. Oldenberg, loc. cit. p. 750.

2. The Dīpavaṃsa, an ancient Buddhist historical record. London, 1879.

3. Assuming twenty to be the minimum age at which a man could be ordained. ]

p. xliii in orders forty-five years (Dīpavaṃsa IV, 41), he ordained Śaunaka. This would give us 461 - 45 = 416 B. C. , while the tenth year of Nāgadāsa, 429 - 10, would give us 419 A. D. Later on the Dīpavaṃsa (V, 78) allows an interval of forty years between the ordinations of Dāśaka and Śaunaka, which would bring the date of Śaunaka’s ordination to 421 B. C. , instead of 419 or 416 B. C. Here there is a fault which must be noted. Dāśaka died 461 - 64 = 397 A. D. , which is called the eighth year of Śiśunāga, and so it is 405 - 8 = 397 A. D.

When Śaunaka had been in orders forty years, i. e. 416 - 40 = 376, Kālāśoka is said to have reigned a little over ten years, i. e. 387 - 11 = 376 A. D. , and in that year Śaunaka ordained Siggava. He died 416 - 66 = 350 A. D. , which is called the sixth year of the Ten, while in reality it is the ninth, 359 - 6 = 353 A. D. If, however, we take 419 as the year of Śaunaka’s ordination, his death would fall 419 - 66 = 353 B. C.

Siggava, when he had been in orders sixty-four years, ordained Tishya Maudgalīputra. This date 376 - 64 = 312 B. C. is called more than two years after Candragupta’s accession, and so it very nearly is, 315 - 2 = 313.

Siggava died when he had been in orders seventy-six years, i. e. 376 - 76 = 300 A. D. This year is called the fourteenth year of Candragupta, which it very nearly is, 315 - 14 = 301.

When Tishya had been in orders sixty^[1] years, he ordained Mahendra, 312 - 60 = 252 B. C. This is called six years after Aśoka’s coronation, 259 - 6 = 253, and so it very nearly is. He died 312 - 80 = 232 B. C. , which is called the twenty-sixth year of Aśoka, and so it very nearly is.

[1. I take 60 (80), as given in Dīpavaṃsa V, 95, 107, instead of 66 (86), given in Dīpavaṃsa V. 94. ]