Alternate date of the birth of the Buddha

From:

Antiquity and Continuity of Indian History : Part 5

(From Swayambhuva Manu to Gupta Dynasty)

by Dr. Prasad Gokhale

14. Gautam Buddha

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"Modern history tends to inform readers that Gautama was born around 550 B.C. and died after about 80 years. Kota Venkatachalam, writes in his book "The Age of Buddha, Milinda and King Amtiyoka and Yuga Purana" that, "Due to his wrong identification of Maurya Chandragupta as the contemporary of Alexander, the history of Bharat has been shifted by 12 centuries (and) it is the Chandragupta of the Gupta dynasty who belongs to 327-320 B.C."

Thus, due to the confusion in pinpointing properly the "sheet anchor" of Indian history, Lord Buddha's antiquity has been underestimated by about 1200 years. Now that Chandragupta Maurya reigned in 1550 B.C. (instead of 325 B.C.), the time when the latter flourished can be calculation to be around 1850 B.C. (instead of 550 B.C.).

All the Puranas and another historical compilation titled Kaliyug- rajavruttanta, profess to describe the Magadha royal dynasties starting from the Bruhadratha to the Andhra lineages, after which the Magadha empire disintegrated. It is known from the Bhagavad Puraan that Buddha was 23rd in the Ikshwaku lineage. However, the list of Ikshwaku kings are not available. In order to determine the date of Siddharta (Buddha), it is necessary to find the contemporary kings in the Magadha genealogy. According to different accounts, the Buddha was a contemporary of Kshemajita, Bindusar and Ajatashatru, the 31st-33rd kings of the Shishunaga dynasty. The Buddha was 72 years old when the coronation of Ajatashatru took place, that is in 1814 B.C. Going backwards, the date of Buddha's birth becomes 1887 B.C. Since he lived for 80 years, the Buddha must have left the body in 1807 B.C.

This date can also be confirmed by purely referring to astronomical calculations, and what is correctly and exactly obtained as the date for Buddha's nirvana is 27-3-1807 (Sathe, Age of Buddha). This date also explains the possibility of the existence of Buddhism in the second millennium B.C., as was rejected earlier. The astronomical computations of the indologist-astronomer Swami Sakhyananda suggests that the Buddha belonged to the Kruttika period, i.e., in between 2621-1661 B.C. In his book "Chronology of Ancient Bharat" (Part4.Chap2), Prof. K.Srinivasaraghavan states the approximate time of Buddha to be 2259 years after the Bharata War (3138 B.C.). which turns out to be 1880 B.C.

Thyagaraja Aiyer in his book "Indian Architecture" observes," Here lies Indian Sramanacharya from Bodh Gaya, a Shakya monk taken to Greece by his Greek pupils and the tomb marks his death about 1000 B.C." If the Buddhist monk went to Greece in 1000 B.C., then the Buddha must have lived at least a few centuries earlier. Somayajulu places Chandragupta Maurya in the 14th century B.C (ref: Dates in Ancient History of India). This puts the Buddha three centuries earlier, i.e., in the 17th century B.C. A brief chronology of the events in Buddha's life: Born in 1887 B.C., Renunciation in 1858 B.C., Penance during 1858-52 B.C and Death in 1807 B.C.

There are various other calculations and evidences which point to the 1800 B.C. date. However, it is believed that, at least for this article, the presentation made above suffices to convince and ascertain the date of Buddha. After determining these dates, the time location of yet another savant of ancient India, Mahaveer, becomes easy."