..續本文上一頁ncy of Tissa Moggaliputta, took place at Pâtaliputta, the new capital adopted by that king, instead of Râgagaha and Vesâlî. This Council is chiefly known to us through the writings of the southern Buddhists (Dîpavamsa, Mahâvamsa, and Buddhaghosa), who belong to the school of Moggaliputta (Theravâda or Vibhaggavâda), which ruled supreme at Pâtaliputta, while Upagupta, the chief authority of the northern Buddhists, is altogether ignored in the Pâli chronicles.

　　 Now it is well known that Asoka was the grandson of Kandagutta, and Kandagutta 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 Mahâvihâra in Ceylon that Asoka was crowned, according to their computation, 146 + 18 years before the accession of Dutthagâmani, 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 Bindusâra had reigned twenty-eight years^[1] (357-329 B.C.), and Bindusâra”s father, Kandagutta,

　　[1. Mahâvamsa, p. 21.]

　　p. xxxvi twenty-four years (381-357). As we know that Kandagutta, 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 Kandagutta the dates 315-291, instead of 381-357. This gives us 291-263 for Bindusâra, 259 for Asoka”s abhisheka; 259 + 118 = 377 for the Council of Vesâlî, 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 Agâtasatru, 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 Kâranda-vyûha, p. 96, a date is given as 300 after the Nirvâna, ”tritîye varshasate gate mama parinirvritasya.” In the Asoka-avadâna we read, mama nirvritim ârabhya satavarshagata Upagupto nâma bhikshur utpatsyati.

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

　　3. The Greek name Sandrokyptus shows that the Pâli corruption Kandagutta was not yet the re…

《The Dhammapada - Introduction》全文未完，請進入下頁繼續閱讀…