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Mauryya Chronology and Connected Problems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

N. K. Bhattasali
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Extract

A Student of Indian History is often surprised to find that what he has been accustomed to look upon from boyhood as sheet anchors of Indian Chronology prove, on closer scrutiny, to be very far from being so. The year 322–321 B.C. for the accession of Candragupta Mauryya is one of such dates.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , April 1932 , pp. 273 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1932

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References

page 284 note 1 “These three verses (containing the date for the accession of Candragupta) are repeated in many commentaries and chronological works (of the Jainas).” DrCharpentier, in the Indian Antiquary, 1914, p. 120Google Scholar.

“We find this last date, viz. 312 b.c., referred to in other Jaina works of high antiquity as the date of this king.” An Epitome of Jainism, by Nahar and Ghose, Appendix A, p. iv. Mr. Nahar makes the date as 312 b.c. by taking the Vikarama Era to begin in 57 b.c.

page 284 note 2 It should be noted here that even this oft-repeated passage of Jaina literature has some confusion in its beginning, which DrCharpentier, has taken pains to elucidate and remove. Indian Antiquary, 1914Google Scholar, “The Date of Mahāvīra.” But the confusion does not affect the date for Candragupta.

page 284 note 3 “The dynastic list of the Jainas mentioned above, tells us that Candragupta, the Sandrocottos of the Greeks, began his reign 255 years before the Vikrama Era, or in 313 b.c., a date that cannot be far wrong.” DrCharpentier, in Cambridge History, p. 158Google Scholar.

page 287 note 1 Indian Antiquary, 1914, p. 174. The event took place not long after the accession of Ajātaśatru and sixteen years before the Kaivalya of Mahāvīra. The followers of this Prophet, the Ajīvikas, receive warm attention later on from Aśoka himself and from his grandson Daśaratha, and they dedicated several caves to the ascetics of this order. For a long number of years, Gośāla was a follower and a co-worker of Mahāvīra, but ultimately turned out to be his bitter rival. The death of this prophet, who also may be regarded as a Nirgrantha (Jaina), was probably confused for the death of Mahāvīra himself in Buddhist sacred literature. Vide Indian Antiquary, 1914, p. 177.

page 288 note 1 When this paper was nearing completion I was enabled through the courtesy of Mr. Jyotirmmaya Sen, M.A., of the Dacca University, to read a reprint of MrStein's, O. paper on the coronation of Candrugupta, published in “Archiv Orientalni”, Journal of the Czechoslovak Oriental Institute, Prague, vol. i, No. 3, 11, 1929Google Scholar. Mr. Steins paper was prompted by a desire to criticize Mr Jyotirmmaya Sen's paper on the same subject published in vol. v, 1929, pp. 6–14, of the Indian Historical Quarterly of Calcutta. I was agreeably surprised and very much delighted to find that on the subject of the duration of the Greek occupation of the Panjab, Mr. Stein has taken the same view as I have taken in this paper. As far as I know, he is the only European scholar to take this view, which, as I have taken some pains to show above, is the only sane view that can be taken. The latter part of Mr. Stein's brilliant paper is marked by some confusion of thought and on p. 369, footnote 3, he unduly minimizes the importance of Dewan Bahadur Swamikannu Pillai's scholarly attempt to calculate the correctness of the dates of Nirvāna, Buddha's in the Indian Antiquary, 1914Google Scholar.

There are numerous writings on Mauryya Chronology, and it would be difficult to refer to them all. Mr. Jyotirmmaya Sen's paper in the Indian Historical Quarterlyhas been ably criticized by Mr. Stein. MrJayswal's, paper in the JASB., 1913, p. 317 ff.Google Scholar, assumes that Magas of Cyrene died in 258 b.c., and supposes that the XIIIth Rock Edict of Asoka could not have been published before the fourteenth year of his coronation. As will be seen above, the death of Magas is now put at 250 b.c., and that also conjeoturally. Thus the whole edifice that Mr. Jayswal based on this foundation gives way.

Another noteworthy paper is by MrChattopadhyaya, K. P., in JASB., 1927, p. 503 ff.Google Scholar, on “The Social Organization of the Śatakarṇis and Suṅgas”. It is a lengthy paper, and the chronology of the Mauryyas is only incidentally referred to on pp. 536 ff. The writer practically ignores the Greek evidence and attempts to prove that the stories that Alexander heard about Xandrammes, king of the Prasii. fit in with the traditions in Indian literature current only about Candragupta—completely ignoring the fact that the exact counterpart of the stories heard by the Greek emperor are to be found in Hemachandra regarding the origin of Nanda.