piler of the Vinaya, was one of the disciples of

4. This arranged list has the advantage of placing Renato at the period of the Second Synod, instead of that of the Third Synod, which we know was conducted by Mogaliputra. If we could be positively certain of the accuracy of the date given for Sákya's death, in 543 B.C., the chronology might perhaps be arranged in a satisfactory manner. But, even in early times, there would seem to have been a difference of opinion as to the period of Sákya's death; for Hwan-Thsang, who travelled in India about 632640 A.D., says that accounts differt as to the year of the Nirvana of Buddha. "Some make it 1,200 years ago, others more than 1,300; others again more than 1,500. There are some, too, that assure us that this event occurred about 900 years ago, and that 1,000 years are not yet fulfilled." The same uncertainty would seem to have prevailed even at an earlier date; for Buddhaghoso, speaking about the succession of teachers from the death of Buddha to

* Bhadra is a synonyme of Ananda.

+ See Fo-kwe-ki, c. xxiv. n. 4.

the period of the Third Synod, says that the religion was perpetuated from Upáli to Mogaliputra, "whatever the interval might be."* This expression clearly shows that there was a difference of opinion even in his day (A. D. 420) regarding the exact date of the death of Buddha. But as Buddhaghoso was a Magadha Bráhman, he must have known the Indian date of Sákya's nirvâna, and as this date coincides with that of the Burmese and Ceylonese chronicles, I do not well see how it can be set aside. It is a curious fact also that the mean of the dates, obtained by Hwan-Thsang, agrees within one year of the Burmese and Ceylonese dates. Thus the average interval which elapsed from Sákya's death to HwanThsang's visit, is 1,180 years, from which, deducting 636, the mean period of Hwan-Thsang's travels, we obtain B. c. 544 for the death of Buddha. The coincidence is remarkable.

5. In this work I have made use of the generally received date of B. C. 543, as it appears to me to be sufficiently well established. In adopting this date, I am aware that a correction will be necessary for the Buddhistical date of Asoka's succession in the 218th year after the Nirvana. But as the exact amount of this correction can be obtained from a source independent of the Buddhist annals, I think that every reliance may be placed upon its accuracy. Both Buddhaghoso and Mahánámo agree in making the accession of Nanda, King of Magadha, in the *Turnour's Annals, in Prinsep's Journal, vi. 727.

118th year after the Nirvana, or in B. c. 425; and they assign to him, and to his successors, the nine Nandas, a joint period of only forty-four years. Now all the Brahmanical Purânas, in their accounts of the kings of Magadha, agree in stating that the Nandas reigned one hundred years. By using this amount as the correct one, we obtain Anno Buddha 218, or B. c. 325, as the date of Chandra Gupta's accession; thus making him a contemporary of Alexander the Great and Seleukos Nikator; a fact which has long since been proved by several passages from the Greek historians. The happy identification of Chandra Gupta with the Sandrocottos, or Sandrokuptos* of the Greeks was first made by Sir William Jones, and its accuracy has since been generally admitted for the identification depends fully as much upon the similarity of their personal histories as upon the positive identity of their names.

6. It would be difficult, and, perhaps, impossible, to ascertain the real origin of this error of sixtysix years in the Buddhist annals; but I may hazard a guess that the pious and enthusiastic Buddhists of Asoka's age may in the first instance have adopted the date of his conversion as that of the true foundation of the Mauryan Dynasty, by omitting the Brahmanical reigns of his father and grandfather, as well as the first four years of his own reign before his acknowledgment of Buddhism. Under this supposition, his inauguration would have been antedated

Σανδροκυπτος is the spelling of Athenaeus.

by sixty-six years, which is the exact amount of difference between the Buddhist and Bráhmanical lengths of reigns, as well as the precise amount of correction required to make the Buddhist chronology harmonise with that of the Greeks. In after times, when Buddhaghoso composed his commentaries on the Singhalese Annals, I suppose that the date of Asoka's inauguration was assumed to be correct, and that the duration of his father's and grandfather's reigns, and the first four years of his own reign, were deducted from the one hundred years of the Nandas. This supposition is rendered more probable by the valuable opinion of Mr. Turnour,* the learned translator of the Mahawanso, who points to the difference between the Bráhmanical and Buddhistical authorities, and more particularly to "some confusion in the durations assigned to the reigns of the ten Nandas," as the most likely causes of error. He was unable to account for the error himself; but he did "not despair of seeing the discrepancy accounted for in due course of time." He adopted the same fixed points, as I have done; namely, the Buddhist era of Sákya's death, in B. C. 543; and the Greek age of Sandrocottos, about 325 B. C.; but he was inclined to believe that the anachronism was the result of design and not of accident.

* See Prinsep's Journal, vi. 725.

CHAPTER VI.

SECOND SYNOD.

1. Having thus adjusted the chronology, I can proceed with confidence to the historical account of the progress of Buddhism. I have already given the proceedings of the First Synod, and some brief details of the manner of life and strict observances of the different grades of the Bauddha community. But these observances, which the early Buddhists practised with enthusiastic zeal, were found irksome by many of their successors. At the end of the first century after Sákya's death, a numerous fraternity of monks at Vaisáli asserted the lawfulness of the following indulgences:

1st. "The preservation of salt in horn for any period is lawful," instead of the seven days allowed by Sákya.

2nd. "The allowance of two inches in length of the shadow of the declining sun, to partake of food," which Sákya had prohibited after midday.

* See Mahawanso, p. 15; and Turnour's Páli Annals, in Prinsep's Journal, vi. 728, 729.