We have carefully examined the new inscription discovered by General A.
Cunningham on the strength of which the date assigned to Buddha's death
by Buddhist writers has been declared to be incorrect; and we are of
opinion that the said inscription confirms the truth of the Buddhist
traditions instead of proving them to be erroneous. The above-mentioned
archeologist writes as follows regarding the inscription under
consideration in the first volume of his reports:--"The most interesting
inscription (at Gaya) is a long and perfect one dated in the era of the
Nirvana or death of Buddha. I read the date as follows:--Bhagavati
Parinirvritte Samvat 1819 Karttike badi I Budhi--that is, 'in the year
1819 of the Emancipation of Bhagavata on Wednesday, the first day of the
waning moon of Kartik.' If the era here used is the same as that of the
Buddhists of Ceylon and Burmah, which began in 543 B.C., the date of
this inscription will be 1819--543 = A.D. 1276. The style of the
letters is in keeping with this date, but is quite incompatible with
that derivable from the Chinese date of the era. The Chinese place the
death of Buddha upwards of 1000 years before Christ, so that according
to them the date of this inscription would be about A.D. 800, a period
much too early for the style of character used in the inscription. But
as the day of the week is here fortunately added, the date can be
verified by calculation. According to my calculation, the date of the
inscription corresponds with Wednesday, the 17th of September, AD. 1342.
This would place the Nirvana of Buddha in 477 B.C., which is the very
year that was first proposed by myself as the most probable date of that
event. This corrected date has since been adopted by Professor Max
Muller."
The reasons assigned by some Orientalists for considering this so-called
"corrected date" as the real date of Buddha's death have already been
noticed and criticized in the preceding paper; and now we have only to
consider whether the inscription in question disproves the old date.
Major-General Cunningham evidently seems to take it for granted, as far
as his present calculation is concerned, that the number of days in a
year is counted in the Magadha country and by Buddhist writers in
general on the same basis on which the number of days in a current
English year is counted; and this wrong assumption has vitiated his
calculation and led him to a wrong conclusion. Three different methods
of calculation were in use in India at the time when Buddha lived, and
they are still in use in different parts of the country. These methods
are known as Souramanam, Chandrarmanam and Barhaspatyamanam. According
to the Hindu works on astronomy a Souramanam year consists of 365 days
15 ghadias and 31 vighadias; a Chandramanam year has 360 days, and a
year on the basis of Barhaspatyamanam has 361 days and 11 ghadias
nearly. Such being the case, General Cunningham ought to have taken the
trouble of ascertaining before he made his calculation the particular
manam (measure) employed by the writers of Magadha and Ceylon in giving
the date of Buddha's death and the manam used in calculating the years
of the Buddhist era mentioned in the inscription above quoted. Instead
of placing himself in the position of the writer of the said inscription
and making the required calculation from that standpoint, he made the
calculation on the same basis of which an English gentleman of the
nineteenth century would calculate time according to his own calendar.
If the calculation were correctly made, it would have shown him that the
inscription in question is perfectly consistent with the statement that
Buddha died in the year 543 B.C. according to Barhaspatyamanam (the only
manam used in Magadha and by Pali writers in general). The correctness
of this assertion will be clearly seen on examining the following
calculation.
543 years according to Barhaspatyamanam are equivalent to 536 years and
8 months (nearly) according to Souramanam.
Similarly, 1819 years according to the former manam are equivalent to
1798 years (nearly) according to the latter manarn.
As the Christian era commenced on the 3102nd year of Kaliyuga (according
to Souramanam), Buddha died in the year 2565 of Kaliyuga and the
inscription was written in the year 4362 of Kaliyuga (according to
Souramanam). And now the question is whether according to the Hindu
almanack, the first day of the waning moon of Kartik coincided with a
Wednesday.
According to Suryasiddhanta the number of days from the beginning of
Kaliyuga up to midnight on the 15th day of increasing moon of Aswina is
1,593,072, the number of Adhikamasansas (extra months) during the
interval being 1608 and the number of Kshayathithis 25,323.
If we divide this number by 7 the remainder would be 5. As Kaliyuga
commenced with Friday, the period of time above defined closed with
Tuesday, as according to Suryasiddhanta a weekday is counted from
midnight to midnight.
It is to be noticed that in places where Barhaspatyamanam is in use
Krishnapaksham (or the fortnight of waning moon) commences first and is
followed by Suklapaksham (period of waxing moon).
Consequently, the next day after the 15th day of the waxing moon of
Aswina will be the 1st day of the waning moon of Kartika to those who
are guided by the Barhaspatyamanam calendar. And therefore the latter
date, which is the date mentioned in the inscription, was Wednesday in
the year 4362 of Kaliyuga.
The geocentric longitude of the sun at the time of his meridian passage
on the said date being 174 deg. 20' 16" and the moon's longitude being
70 deg 51' 42" (according to Suryasiddhanta) it can be easily seen that
at Gaya there was Padyamitithi (first day of waning moon) for nearly 7
ghadias and 50 vighadias from the time of sunrise.
It is clear from the foregoing calculation that "Kartik I Badi"
coincided with Wednesday in the year 4362 of Kaliyuga or the year 1261
of the Christian era, and that from the standpoint of the person who
wrote the inscription the said year was the 1819th year of the Buddhist
era. And consequently this new inscription confirms the correctness of
the date assigned to Buddha's death by Buddhist writers. It would have
been better if Major-General Cunningham had carefully examined the basis
of his calculation before proclaiming to the world at large that the
Buddhist accounts were untrustworthy.