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IX. The Origin of the Buddhavarsha, the Ceylonese Recking from the Death of Buddha
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
A Passage in the Last Edict of Aśōka, which is explained by, and at the same time endorses, certain statements in the Dīpavṁsa and the Mahāvaṁsa, shows that in the third century B.C. there existed a record, of the time elapsed since the death of Buddha, from which it was known that Aśōka was anointed to the sovereignty 218 years after the death.
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page 323 note 1 Regarding this record, see this Journal, 1908, 811.Google Scholar
page 323 note 2 See note 1 on p. 2 above.
page 324 note 1 Professor Lüders has shown that this name is probably written most correctly with the lingual ṇ; also, that the vowel in the first syllable should perhaps be taken to be the long ā: see Epigraphia Indica, vol. 9, p. 240.Google Scholar
page 325 note 1 See the note on p. 5 above.
page 325 note 2 Regarding the use of this and similar expressions, see note 1 on p. 12 above.
page 325 note 3 See p. 33 f. above.
page 326 note 1 This term appears to be the standing designation of the reckoning. It is found in the inscriptions of the years 1743 and 1958 (see p. 327 below, and note 1 on p. 333). Upham used it, in writing of “the Budhu verousa or era”, as quoted by Turnour in his Mahāwanso, introd., p. 6.Google Scholar It is met with in the modern inscription at Bōdh-Gayā which is apparently dated Buddhavassē 2427, in A.D. 1884Google Scholar: see Cunningham, , Mahābodhi, p. 19,Google Scholar note 2; also note 1 on p. 1 above. And I am informed that it is used in Ceylonese almanacs. The term in Burma seems to be Jinachakra, ‘the cycle of the Conqueror’; with reference perhaps to the 5000 years for which the religion and the era are to last.
page 326 note 2 For the words of the text, I am indebted to Mrs. Bode, who has kindly verified for me all the other details, also, which I quote in this article from Sumangala and Batuwantudawa's edition.
page 326 note 3 Subsequent instances of the use of the reckoning in the Suluvaṁsa are as follows: in 91. 15, 16, the year 1953; in 92. 6–8, the year 2085; in 94. 5, 6, the year 2135; in 94. 19, 20, the year 2140; in 99. 2, the year 2290; in 100. 60, 61, the year 2293; in 100. 92, the year 2299; in 100. 286, the year 2301. In each ease the dating appears to be specifically from the nibbāna or parinibbāna (according to the exigencies of the metre), i.e. the death, of Buddha.
page 327 note 1 Translation (apparently by Armour) in the Ceylon Almanac for 1834, p. 190,Google Scholar in an appendix to Turnour's epitome of the history of Ceylon. Text and translation by Davids, Rhys in this Journal, 1875. 356.Google Scholar Remarks, text, and translation by Müller, in Ancient Inscriptions in Ceylon, No. 156, pp. 68, 103, 136.Google Scholar It is to be hoped that Mr. Wickremasinghe may see his way to giving us in his Epigraphia Zeylanica, at some early date, critical texts and translations of this and the other two inscriptions which I mention.
page 327 note 2 Müller's translation gives Tuesday, instead of Wednesday: the translation in this Journal gives Thursday, the full-moon day. The words in the respective texts are pura doloswak lada Badā dawas, and pura doloswak lada Badā dā. According to Alwis (Journal of the Ceylon Branch R.A.S., vol. 3, pp. 181, 191Google Scholar), —and his explanations have every appearance of being correct,— pura means the fortnight of the waxing moon, doloswaka means the twelfth tithi, and Badādā means Wednesday (the words for Tuesday and Thursday being ‘Angaharuwādā’ and ‘Brahaspatindā’): and the translation in the ceylon Almanac is in agreement with this.
page 328 note 1 I have not been able to learn what the present practice is on this point. Turnour, writing in 1837, seemed to mark the full-moon da of Vaiśākha as being then the initial day of the years of the Buddhavarsha (JASB, 6, 1837.Google Scholar 505: the figure 2480 there given is an obvious misprint for 2380). But there are some indications that the observance of the Vaiśākhapōjā (see p. 8 above) has now ceased in at any rate the northern parts of Ceylon, where the calendar year is the solar year commencing with the Mĕshasaṁkrānti, the entrance of the sun into the sidereal Aries, occurring now on 11 or 12 April; and that the day of that occurrence is the only recognized Ceylonese New Year's Day in those parts. And Kern (Manual of Indian Buddhism, p. 101Google Scholar) seems to quote Pallegoix (1854) to the effect that the observance of the Vaiśākhapūjā, though still maintained in Siam, had then already ceased in Ceylon. Perhaps someone who has a practical knowledge of Ceylon will enlighten us on this point ?
page 328 note 2 Regarding the real day, Kārttika śukla 8, see my article at p. 1 ff. above.
page 328 note 3 Translation (apparently by Armour) in the Ceylon Almanac for 1834, p. 184Google Scholar (where the inscription is said to be at Polonnaruwa). Remarks, text, and translation by Müller, , op. cit., No. 148, pp. 66, 95, 128.Google Scholar
page 328 note 4 This seems to be Vijayabāhu II, No. 120, sister's son and successor of Parakkamabāhu I. He reigned for one year, commencing in A. D. 1186 or closely thereabouts.
page 329 note 1 The translation in the Ceylon Almanac for 1834Google Scholar takes it as the date when Nissaṅkamalla arrived in Ceylon. But that explanation seems not possible. Müller's translation is somewhat involved, but perhaps was meant to indicate the year as the date of the conception, which it really appears to be. Vijaya did not reach Ceylon by flying through the air: he travelled by ship. But Buddha flew down from the heavens when he was conceived by Māyā: and it seems plainly to be a similar flight through the air which the inscription attributes to Nissaṅkamalla.
page 329 note 2 As, for instance, in Dīpavaṁsa, 17. 77–8, where the question is how many years elapsed from the landing of Vijaya to the anointment of Dēvānaṁpiya-Tissa, and the answer is that 236 years elapsed to the anointment from the death of Buddha.
page 329 note 3 Remarks, text, and translation by Müller, , op. cit., No. 137, pp. 61, 87, 120.Google Scholar
page 330 note 1 It is actually so treated in the Kalyāṇi inscription mentioned in the next note.
page 330 note 2 The history given to us in the chronicles at this point is as follows: Dīpavaṁsa, 19. 14–20; 20. 14–19; Mahāvaṁsa, pp. 202–8. Vaṭṭagāmani reigned in the first instance for 5 months. He was then driven out by seven Damila invaders, five of whom (shown under No. 20 in my table at p. 350 below) reigned in succession for 14 years, 7 months. He then succeeded in rallying a force, by means of which he killed the last of them, Dāṭhika or Dāṭhiya, and recovered his kingdom. He then built the Abhayagirivihāra. And he reigned for 12 years from his restoration.
The details in my table place the initial date of Vaṭṭagāmani at 437 years (9 months, 10 days) and his restoration at 452 years (9 months, 10 days) according to the Mahāvaṁsa, and 8 years earlier according to the Dīpavaṁsa. According to both the chronicles, the year 454 fell during his reign. And the inscription may be taken as treating his restoration as the important point, with that date for it.
The Kalyāṇi inscription of A.D. 1476, from Pegu, Lower Burma, seems, as translated (Indian Antiquary, 22. 38Google Scholar), to go farther, and to place the initial point itself of Vaṭṭagāmani at the year 218 ( + 236 = 454). But the text (p. 159) has yadā pana, not tadā pana; and the editor has divided and punctuated the remainder of the passage wrongly. What the record really says is as follows:—“The religion remained pure for 218 years after the building of the Mahāvihāra … But, when king Vaṭṭagāmani-Abhaya conquered the Damila king Dādhiya (sic) and acquired the sovereignty in Ceylon, he caused the Abhayagirivihāra to be made; and, bringing the Thĕra Mahā-Tissa,—who had always been the first to befriend him during the 14 years when, having been overcome and driven away by seven Damiḷas, he was living in hiding,—he gave it to him:” and so (it goes on) there occurred the secession of the Abhayagirivihāra community.
The commentary on the Mahāvaṁsa, without going into the detail of months and days given in the text, says that the residents of Abhayagiri seceded in the year 217 after the establishment of religion in Ceylon, and in the time of king Vaṭṭagāmani, and, under the name of Dhammaruchikas, took up their abode in the Abhayagirivihāra, which he caused to be built: see Oldenberg's, Catalogue of Pāli MSS. in the India Office Library, p. 114;Google Scholar also Turnour's, Mahāwanso, introd., p. 53.Google Scholar
page 331 note 1 See this Journal, 1907. 1037,Google Scholar note 2.
page 331 note 2 See p. 1 f. above, and note. Since writing those remarks and these, I have received information that the present Ceylonese reckoning does, like that of Burma and Siam, place the initial point in B. c. 544.
page 332 note 1 Wijesinha placed it in A.D. 1164, in the year 1707 completed: but his chronology is particularly faulty for this period (see p. 344 below). The Kalyāṇi inscription of A.D. 1176 (see note 2 on p. 330 above) says (IA, 22. 39, 206) that the 18th year after the anointment of Parakkamabāhu I came 1472 years after the establishment of religion in Ceylon, and 1708 years after the death of Buddha; which would place the anointment in the year 1690 completed, in A.D. 1147–48. This is curious; because Turnour, who ‘adjusted’ an ‘error’ of six years at this point, appears to have arrived in natural course at the year 1690, and then to have raised the figure on the strength of a statement found in some other work. Reckoned back from the anointment of Sāhasamalla, the exact date of which we now know, the details in the Suluvaṁsa distinctly place the event in the year 1696 completed, in A.D. 1153.
page 332 note 2 See Muller, , op. cit., 60 ff.;Google Scholar and the steps taken by Parakkamabāhu I as narrated in the Suluvaṁsa, chapters 73, 74, 76 (verses 106–22), 78, and in the inscription of the year 1708.
page 333 note 1 Subsequent inscriptional instances of the use of the era are Müller's No. 160, of the “Buddhavarsha” year 1958, and No. 162, of the year 2051 of (according to the translation) “the era of the omniscient Gautama”.
page 333 note 2 See, e.g., Turnour's, Mahāwanso, introd., pp. 53, 60.Google Scholar
page 333 note 3 Namely, fifty-six years from the initial date of Chandragupta to the anointment of Aśōka, and then seventeen and a half years after that: see pp. 3, 11, above.
page 334 note 1 A reign of fifty-five years is assigned to Vijayabāhu I, No. 115 in Turnour's list, A.D. 1071–1126: but he appears to have come to the throne early, in his seventeenth or eighteenth year. Including that, there are only twenty reigns in excess of twenty years each.
page 333 note 2 And the archives must have contained carefully prepared genealogical; tables, including exact records of births and deaths. Without such a guide, there could hardly have been written up the family details given here and there in the Suluvarṁsa from 57. 4 to 67. 87.
page 335 note 1 As other instances of the obvious predilection for even years, note how, in the Kalyāṇi inscription (see note 2 on p. 330 above), the period of 217 years, 10 months, 10 days is stated as 218 years, and the period of 14 years, 7 months, as 14 years.
page 336 note 1 I quote the figures from his first table (for which see farther on), which was the basis of his work. He subsequently reduced the twelve years under Mahāsēna to four years, by assigning some of them to previous details: but the general position was left the same.
page 336 note 2 See p. 342 below, under my observations on No. 55, Siri-Mēghavaṇṇa.
page 336 note 3 Perhaps something useful may also be found in Renaudot's Ancient Accounts of India and China by two Mohammedan Travellers who went to those parts [and to Ceylon” in the ninth century.
page 338 note 1 The table might be improved by adding the relationships between the kings, and their capitals, and showing how each reign came to an end, whether by natural death, or by assassination, etc.: also, following Turnour still farther, by adding a column of remarks, exhibiting the achievements assigned to each king and the events placed in his reign. But we are concerned here with only the names, and the length of each reign.
page 341 note 1 Turnour's text has chhchattālīsa: his translation gives “fifty-six” (sic), which Wijesinha altered into “forty”. Are we to read chattālīsa, or chhachattālīsa with one syllable in excess from the metrical point of view ? —[On this point, see now p. 355 below.]
page 341 note 2 See a remark in note 1 on p. 1 above.
page 342 note 1 Journal Asiatique, 1900, pt. i, pp. 316 f., 401.Google Scholar
page 342 note 2 Smith, V., in Indian Antiquary, 1902. 258, 260;Google ScholarEarly History of India, 2nd edition, 272, 308.Google Scholar
page 345 note 1 Indian Antiquary, 22 (1893). 17, 29 f.;Google Scholar text at 151 ff.
page 346 note 1 I mean, of course, apart from modern instances such as that of the year 2427, in A.D. 1884: see note 1 on p. 326 above.
page 348 note 1 There is a question regarding the initial point of the Lakshmaṇasēna era. But it is only a matter of a few years. I follow Professor Kielhorn, who placed it in A.D. 1119, against 1105 to 1109.