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' Having thus spoken, he blessed them by sprinkling water on them out of his jug, and having tied (charmed) threads on their arms, departed through the air," At the end of the preceding chapter, the date of the event is still more accurately fixed. " This prince named Vijaya," we read there, " who had then attained the wisdom of experience, landed in the di- vision Tflmraparnl of this land Lankd^ on the day that the successor of former Buddhas reclined in the arbour of the two delightful sal-trees, to attain Nir- vfi.na." In this manner the conquest of Ceylon was invested with a religious character, and at the same time a connection was established between the tra- ditional chronology of Ceylon and the sacred history of Buddha. If Buddha was a true prophet, the Cey- lonese argue quite rightly that he must have died in the year of the Conquest, or 543 b. c. This synchronism once established, it became ne- cessary to accommodate to it, as well as possible, the rest of the legendary history of the Buddhists. It con- tained but few historical elements previous to Ak)ka's Council, but that council had again to be connected with the history of Ceylon. A6oka was the cotem- porary of Dev&n&mpriya Tishya, King of Ceylon. This king adopted Buddhism, and made it, like Atoka, the state religion of the island. Now, according to the traditional chronology of Ceylon, Dev&n&mpriya Tishya came to the throne 236 years after the landing of Vijaya \ and he reigned forty years (307 — 267 B.C. ) He was intimately connected with A6oka, as we shaU * Mahavanso, Pref. p. lii. CHROKOLOOY. 271 see, and it was necessaiy that the same interval which in the historical traditions of Ceylon separated DevlLn^mpriya Tishya from Yijaya should separate A&oka from Buddha. This was achieved in the fol- lowing manner : One A6oka is supposed to have come to the throne ninety years after Buddha, and a council (the second, as it is called) is supposed to have taken place in the tenth year of his reign, or just one hundred years after Buddha. At that second council a prophecy was uttered that in 118 years a calamity would befall the Buddhist religion. This refers to the reign of the so-called second Ak>ka, who was at first a great enemy to religion. Now the first ASoka is represented to have reigned 1& years after the Council (100 anno Buddhse), and if we cast up these 118 years, the 22 years of A^ka's sons, the 22 years of the Nine, the 24 years ^ of Chandragupta, the 28 years of Bindu6ara, and the 4 years which elapsed before A&oka's inauguration', we find that Anoka's inauguration would fall just 118 years after the second Council, 218 years after Buddha, or 325 B.C. The Council of this real Atoka was held in the 17th year of his reign, or 235 after Buddha. Mahendra, the son of Atoka, pro- ceeded to Ceylon in the next year, or 236 years after Buddha; and in this manner the arrival of Mahendra in Ceylon, and the inauguration of Dev£ln4mpriya Tishya as King of Ceylon, are brought together in the same year. It is true that in order to achieve this, it has become necessary to add a first Atoka ^, 1 Not thirty-four years as printed in the Mahavanso. See Lassen, ii. 62. n. * As. Res., XX. p. 167. * This first Ai^oka is called K&lasoka, a name which it would be too bold to explain as the chronological ASoka. 272 CHRONOLOGY. of whom the Northern Buddhists know nothing ; it has become necessary to admit another Moggali- putto, and another Council, all equally unknown ex- cept in the traditional chronology of Ceylon. The Northern Buddhists know but one Afioka, the grand- son of Chandragupta ; they know but one Council, besides the Assembly following immediately on the death of Buddha, viz. the Council of Plltaliputra under Dharmd.4oka, and this they place 110 years after Buddha's Nirvfi,na.^ Pindola, a contemporary of of Buddha, w^ seen as an old man by Ak)ka. But who was to contradict the Ceylonese historians? They possessed, what the Buddhists of Magadha did not possess, a history of their island and their sovereigns. They valued historical chronology for its own sake, forming an exception in this respect to all other nations of India. They were a colony, and like most colonies, they valued the traditions of the past. The Buddhists of Magadha, as far as we are able to judge, preserved but a few historical recollections, frequently in the form of prophecies, which they afterwards forced into the loose frame of the Brah- manic chronology. The Buddhists of Ceylon did not borrow the outlines of their history either froni the Brahmans or from the Buddhists of Magadha ; and this is a point which has never been sufficiently considered. Their outlines of history were not con- structed originally in order to hold the Buddhist traditions of the North. They may have been slightly modified, so as to avoid glaring inconsisten* 1 In some instances that date is changed to 200 a.b. hj means of a reaction exercised by the literature of Ceylon on the chronology of the Continental Buddhists. Burnouf, Introduc- tion, p. 436. 578. CHBOKOLOOT. 273 cies between the profane history of Ceylon and the sacred history of Buddhism. But there is evidence to show that, on the other hand, the historical legends of Magadha had to yield much more considerably, — the framers of the final chronology finding it impossible to ignore the annals of their island and the reigns of their ancient half-fabulous kings. The chronology of the Mahftvan6a is a compromise between the chro- nology of Ceylon and that of Magadha, but the latter was the more pliant of the two. There is nothing to prove that the terminus a quo of the chronology of Ceylon, — the date of Vijaya's landing — was borrowed from the North. There were Buddhist traditions connecting Vijaya*s landing with the death of Bud- dha, but the date 543 b. c. is never found in the sacred chronology of Buddhism, before it was bor- rowed from the profane chronology of Ceylon. There were similar, and, as it would seem, better founded traditions, connecting DevlLn&mpriya Tishya with the great ASoka ; but the date of DevftnJLmpriya Tishya was not determined by the date of the great A&oka, nor was the date of Anoka's Council, as 110 after Buddha, accepted in Ceylon. On the contrary, the iiiterval between Yijaya and Dev&nlLmpriya Tishya was allowed to remain as it stood in the Ceylonese annals, and the Buddhist traditions were stretched in order to suit that interval. An intermediate Aioka and an intermediate Council were admitted, which were unknown to the Northern Buddhists. The pro- phecy that N&gllrjuna should live 400 years after Bud- dha \ had been altered by the Chinese so as to suit their chronology. They placed him 800 years after ' As. Rejt XX. 513. T 274 CHANDBAGUFTA. Buddha. In like manner the Ceylonese Buddhists, having fixed Buddha's death at 543 B.C., changed the traditional date of N^gftijuna from 400 to 500 after Buddha.^ All this is constructive chronology, and whether we follow the Chinese or Ceylonese date of Buddha, we must always remember that in both the terminus h quo is purely hypothetical. This does not interfere with the correctness of minor details, such as the number of years assigned to each king, and in particular the chronological distance between certain events. These may have formed part of popular tradition, long before any system of chronology was established. A very old man, Pindola, was repre* sented in a popular legend to have been a contem- porary both of Buddha and of Dharm&6oka. Hence the interval between the founder and the royal patron of Buddhism would naturally be fixed at about 100 years. This is a tradition which may be used for historical purposes. Again, when we see that a date like that of N&g&ijuna fixed in the North of India at 400 after Buddha, is altered to 800 and 500, so as to suit the requirements of two different systems of chronology, we may feel inclined to look upon the unsystematic date as the most plausible. But in order to make use of such indications we must first of all establish a irwi a-r&j and this can only be found in Chandragupta. Everything in Indian chronology depends on the date of Chandragupta. Chandragupta was the grandfather of Atoka, and the contemporary of Seleucus Nicator. Now, according to Chinese chronology, Aioka would have lived, to waive minor ^ Turnour, Examination of Bome points of Buddhist Cbro nologjy Journal of the Aa. S. B., v. 530. Lassen, ii. 58.