Mahâ-Parinibbâna-Suttanta: The Book of the Great Decease

[1. Julien's translation of Hiouen Thsang, 'Mémoires sur les contrées occidentales,' vol. i. p. 172; Kahlana's Râga-taranginî, Book I; and Csoma Körösi in 'Asiatic Researches; vol. xx. pp. 92, 297. They place the Great Decease 400 years before Kanishka, whose Council was held shortly after the commencement of our era.] p. xlviii possibly derived from a northern Buddhist Sanskrit work--the date of the Buddha's death is fixed at five hundred years before the time of Milinda[1], who certainly reigned about a century after Christ. I am, therefore, of opinion that the hitherto accepted date of the Buddha's death should be modified accordingly. This would make the date of the Great Decease about 420-400 B.C. (very possibly a year or two later), and the date of Gotama's birth therefore eighty years earlier, or in round numbers about 500 B.C. I have discussed the whole question at full length in my 'Ancient Coins and Measures of Ceylon,' written in amplification of a paper read in 1874 before the Royal Asiatic Society; and to that work I must refer any reader, who may take interest in these chronological discussions, for ampler details. I have been able here to present only a summary of an argument which is in so far of little importance, inasmuch as the rectification which I have ventured to propose only differs by a little more than half a century from the earliest date which can in any case be suggested as approximately correct (that is about 485 B.C.). The date 543 B.C., still unfortunately accepted outside the circle of students of Buddhism[2], is now acknowledged to be too early by all scholars who have seriously considered the subject.