SECTION II. THE HISTORICAL DATA IN THE LATER TIMES OF INDIAN HISTORY, AND THE PRELIMINARY RESTORATION OF THE OLDER PERIODS. A. THE YEAR OF BUDDHA'S DEATH, 543 B.C., AND THE BUDDHISTIC NOTICES OF THE MAGADHA KINGS DOWN ΤΟ ASOKA. LASSEN, in his masterly treatise, at once ingenious and learned, has proved that the tradition of the Singalese is the only one worthy of notice. According to it, in the year 543 B. C. Buddha escaped from the curse of earthly existence by death, after having arrived at a full sense of self-annihilation (Nirvâna.) 245 The task we are about to undertake is to show the possibility of establishing the true chronology from this fixed point down to Kandragupta, or 315 B.C. The Buddhistic list of kings, with which the most authentic accounts of him personally connect that great founder of a religion, is the list of the kingdom or house of Magadha, which was then seated to the south of Pataliputra, in Ragagriha, so called after an ancient city to the north of Amritsir in the Upper Punjab. The house of Samudradatta, from Mithila (Vidêha), consisting of 25 kings, the last of whom was named Dipankara, reigned there in the first instance. was succeeded by the house of Bhattiya, called also It 245 Lassen, ii. 51-61. The objections advanced by Weber are insignificant; and his own view appears to me wholly inadmissible. Mahâpadma, "abounding in stones," which was the Brahminical epithet of the first of the Nanda kings, the son of Mahanandi and a Sûdrâ. But, as Bhattiya lost his independence, the dynasty commences with his son Bimbisâra, who reigned 52 years, and was succeeded by his son Agâtasatru, who reigned 32 years. The seventh king after Bimbisâra was named Sisunâga, who reigned 18 years, and was succeeded by Kalâsôka (with 28 years), whose son Bhadrasêna (with 22 years for himself and his nine brothers) was the predecessor of Nanda. The most curious feature in this is, that we have three names in common. The founder of the corresponding Brahminical dynasty of Magadha, Sisunâga, is here the last but one, and, indeed, the overthrower of the previous dynasty, at the head of which stand Bimbisâra and Agâtasatru, there the fourth and fifth successors of Sisunâga (with 28 and 25 or 27 years of reign). Whatever explanation may be offered of the confusion in the Brahminical lists, the Buddhist tradition is proved to be in every respect the historical one. According to it Bhattiya became tributary to the king of Anga, but his enterprising son, afterwards King Bimbisâra, expelled the tax-collectors of the king of Anga, by whom the country was oppressed, defeated the king himself, and made Kampa, the capital of Anga, his royal residence until his father's death. The latter had made him king in his fifteenth year, which is a satisfactory explanation of the long reign of 52 years. Now Bimbisâra was in childhood the friend of Buddha, and only five years younger. This entry, which is a purely biographical one, seems to me to deserve to be kept steadily in view. It makes the prophet 20 years old when Bimbisâra was invested with royal authority. Buddha himself was the son of Suddhodana, of the race of the Sâkhja kings of Devadaha, and styles himself the Sramana Gautama, the co lonist of the race of the holy patriarchs of the kings of the eastern country, Gotama, a name which occurs in the Veda as belonging to a celebrated family of minstrels. Now as Buddha only began to dedicate himself to serious reflection in his 29th year (the 10th of the reign of Bimbisâra), but became in his 35th year an awakened (Buddha), and died at 56, the twenty-first of his public teaching, the chronology would stand thus, supposing him to have died in 543, and that he was then 56: the first year of BimLassen makes it 603, Now if Buddha died 543 B. C., bisâra's reign must be 578 B. C. apparently at variance with his own data, and adopts for the Nandas the 88 years of the Brahmins. But this is obviously nothing more than the number required to make up the 100 years, as we find twelve years assigned to the sons. It is, at all events, an impossibility as representing a single reign, and that too the reign of an elected king. The list is as follows: 246 I. The House of Bhattiya: years: first year B. C. 578 Murdered by his son and successor 1. Bimbisâra: reigns 52 - 527 2. Agâtasatru: reigns 32 years: first year Murdered by his son and successor - 526 - 495 year year 3. Udayabhadra (Udaya): reigns 16 years: first Murdered by his son and successor 4. Anurudhaka (Munda): reigns 8 years: first Murdered by his son and successor 246 Comp. Lassen, ii. 63. - 494 - 479 - 478 - 471 5. Nagadasaka: reigns 24 years: first year B. C. 470 Murdered by his successor End of the dynasty of the Parricides. II. The House of Sisunâga: 1. Sisunâga: reigned 18 years: first year 2. Kalâsoka reigned 28 years: first year 3. Bhadrasêna and 9 brothers: 22 years The last of the brothers, Pingamakha, was 447 446 - 428 - 400 III. Nanda and his sons. Nanda, who was not a person of princely extraction, rebels against Pingamakha as leader of a local revolt, captures Pataliputra, and becomes king Nanda's younger brother is dethroned and murdered by Kandragupta. Length of Nanda's reign 66 years. Last IV. The House of the Maurya. accession year Kandragupta's 379 378 313 - 312 The following is the historical value of these details. We have, in the first place, down to Kandragupta, two series of rulers of the princely houses of the Kshattriya. Bimbisâra and his house (4 successors) reign 132 years, or an average of 26 years. Of these, Bimbisâra reigned 52; having, as heir-apparent, been, after the conquest of Kampa, invested by his father with royal authority in his 15th year. This is a corroboration of the biographical accounts which we have followed above. It leaves 80 years for the four successors, an average reign of 20 years each. Beginning with the son of Bimbisâra they were all parricides. The family was not opposed to Buddhism, but remained Brahmins. Agâtasatru built Ragâgriha, the more modern city of that name. The second Kshattriya dynasty ascended the throne, when Sisunaga, as minister and military chief, in con sequence of the universal detestation of the parricidal family, slew the last king. The family itself was descended from a mother of inferior rank, who had been superintendent of the dancers of a king of Likhavi at Vaisali, and subsequently became his wife. His son is properly the first Asoka, but the Brahmins, from hatred towards the second who was the great patron of the Buddhists, called him only Kâkavarna, the Raven-black. He it was who removed the royal residence from Ragâgriha in the south to Pataliputra. He was succeeded by his eldest son Bhadrasêna, who is said to have had nine brothers, his successors. The fall of Pingamakha, however, the last of these, is more important than the fall of the Bimbisâra family. Upon the accession of the Nanda, which now took place, there was unquestionably a stain in the royal blood. All the accounts, Brahminical and Buddhist, agree that he was a man of low extraction, and that there were no more Kshattriya kings. The former indeed aver that it was only the mother who was a Sudrâ, in order to keep up the connexion with the old royal family. One argument in favour of this is, that the last two Brahminical Sisunâga kings are called Nandivardhana and Mahananda. But the whole list is untrustworthy. The Buddhist account, that Nanda was a man of great courage, who took advantage of a riot in his village to make a general arming of the mob, and then instigated them to take into their own hands the conduct of their affairs, is more credible. The people lent a ready ear; he declared war against Pingamakha, took Pataliputra, and became king. After a brief reign he was succeeded by his brothers. The most difficult point in the chronology now remains to be considered, the age of Nanda. It formed an epoch, inasmuch as the computation of the 1015 years, from the beginning of the Kaliyuga, goes down to his coronation. He ruled over "the whole earth." We |