[393] Burnouf, loc. cit. p. 139, 140, 149. Supra, p. 173.
[394] Burnouf, loc. cit. p. 236, 420.
[395] Burnouf, loc. cit. p. 241, 244 ff. "Dhammapadam," translated by A. Weber, 322.
[396] Burnouf, loc. cit. p. 223, 238.
[397] Burnouf, loc. cit. p. 247.
[398] Burnouf, loc. cit. p. 245, 246.
[399] Burnouf, loc. cit. p. 240.
[400] Burnouf, loc. cit. p. 146, 187.
[401] Above, p. 95. Our chronology for the epochs of Indian history depends essentially on fixing two points. The first is the accession of Chandragupta in Magadha, already mentioned, from which the year 315 B.C. is certain (cp. infra); the second point is the year of Buddha's death. The Bhagavata-Purana puts Buddha's death 2000 years after the beginning of the Kaliyuga (supra, p. 77); such a round number and so general a date cannot lay claim to credibility. Besides this we have a number of other Brahmanic statements about the date of Buddha's life, varying more or less, but equally untrustworthy. More weight would naturally be ascribed to the statements of the Buddhists; yet even these differ widely from each other. The Thibetans have fourteen different statements about the year of Buddha's death, which cover the interval from 2422 to 546 or 544 B.C. The Chinese Buddhists as a rule assign Buddha's death to the year 950 B.C., but Buddhism did not reach the Chinese till after the birth of Christ. The most trustworthy statement seems to be that of the Singhalese. Buddhism reached them soon after the year 250 B.C.; from the year 161 B.C. their chronology agrees with existing inscriptions: their chronological system and their era is based on the year of Buddha's death, which they place in 543 B.C. If this date is compared with the Brahmanic list of kings of Magadha we get the following results: Before Chandragupta the dynasty of the Nandas reigned for 88 years according to the Brahmanic accounts, and 22 according to the Singhalese. On this point I agree with Lassen and Gutschmid in preferring the statement of the Brahmans, because the error of the Singhalese may very easily have arisen from the fact that the reign of 22 years, which they give to the sons of Kalaçoka, was incorrectly repeated for the following dynasty. According to this the first Nanda ascended the throne of Magadha in the year 403 (315+88). From this year the items on the Singhalese list carry us up to the year 665 B.C. for the accession of Kshemadharman (Çiçunaga), and the year 603 B.C. for the commencement of the reign of Bimbisara (Gutschmid, "Beiträge," s. 79 ff.), who is succeeded by Ajataçatru eight years before Buddha's Nirvana ("Mahavança," 2, 32, p. 10, ed. Turnour), which thus falls in the year 543 B.C. If we keep to the Singhalese date for the Nanda dynasty, we arrive at the year 477 B.C. for Buddha's death. Bimbisara ascended the throne 198 years according to the Matsya-Purana, and 193 years according to the Vayu-Purana, before the first Nanda. If the year 403 B.C. marks the accession of the Nandas, Bimbisara according to the Matsya-Purana began to reign in 601 B.C., and according to the Vayu-Purana in 590 B.C. Between Bimbisara's accession in 603 B.C. and the end of Açoka of Magadha there intervene, according to the statements of the Buddhists, 375 years. If with this we compare the dates of the reigns in the list of kings in the Vayu-Purana from Bimbisara to Açoka, we get 378 years from the first year of Bimbisara to the last year of Açoka. There is also another fact which agrees with the era 543 B.C. According to the statements of the Singhalese the second synod of the Buddhists was held 100 or 110 years after Buddha's death, in the reign of Kalaçoka, i. e. in 443 or 433 B.C. ("Mahavança," ed. Turnour, p. 15). Of these two statements it is obvious that the more definite, 110 years, is more deserving of credit. According to the detailed statements of the Singhalese for the time of the separate reigns, Kalaçoka's reign begins 90 years after Buddha's death, i. e. 453; he reigns 28 years according to the Singhalese, i. e. if we reckon up the single items from Chandragupta (the Nandas 80, and Kalaçoka's sons 22 years) from 453 to 425 B.C. In this way the era of the Singhalese and the year of Buddha's death are completely justified. Still the year is not wholly beyond a doubt. According to the statement of the native Singhalese, Chandragupta ascended the throne 162 years (and the various items agree with this total) after Buddha's death, i. e. 162 years after the year 543 B.C., and therefore in the year 381 B.C., but we know that his accession took place in 315 B.C. Here we find an error of 66 years, which however we have already removed by adopting the Brahmanic statement of 88 years for the dynasty of the Nandas instead of the 22 years of the Singhalese. Further, it does not agree with the era of 543 B.C., when we are told by the Singhalese that the third Buddhist synod was held 118 years after the second, i. e. 228 years after Buddha's death. We know from inscriptions that this synod met in the seventeenth year of Açoka, Chandragupta's second successor. Açoka reigned from 265 to 228, or from 263 to 226 B.C.: his seventeenth year reckoned from 265 would be 249 B.C.; if we add to this 228 years we get 477 B.C. for the year of Buddha's death; thus we have here again the same error of 66 years. Lastly, it does not agree with the era of 543 B.C. when we are told that the fourth Buddhist synod was held 400 years after the death of Buddha, under Kanishka, king of Cashmere. Kanishka is a contemporary of Augustus and Antonius (Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 2, 412, 413); and according to this statement, therefore, Buddha would have died about the year 400 B.C. As the number of 400 years given for the fourth synod is nevertheless designedly a round number, little weight is to be placed upon it, and the year 543 can be kept as the year of Buddha's death. Before the dynasty of the Nandas in Magadha (403-315 B.C.) the throne was occupied by the Kshatrabandhus or Çaiçunagas for 262 years (665-403 B.C.); before these came the Pradyotas with 138 years (803-665 B.C.), who were again preceded (as is shown above, p. 77) by the Barhadrathas with 615 years, i. e. from 1418 to 803 B.C. (Cf. Gutschmid in "Beiträge zur Geschichte des alten Orients," s. 76, 87, and in "Zeitschrift d. D. M. G." 18, 372 ff.)
[402] As the Arian colonists go from Surashtra to Ceylon about the year 500 B.C., this kingdom must have been in existence in the sixth century B.C. Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 166 ff.