1837.] Examination of the Pali Buddhistical Annals. 723 



other restraint, dictated either by superstition or imposture, which 

 should have compelled Buddhistical authors to work out their histo- 

 rical narrative so as to bring the 10th year of Kala'soko to the 100th 

 year of Sa'kya. But some such restraint or motive must doubtless 

 have operated to have led to the manifest distortion of facts, which 

 represents that the second convocation was held at the close of the 

 100th year after Sakya's death. 



In the ensuing translation it will be seen that no less than eight 

 of the leading members who officiated at the second convocation 

 "had beheld Tathagatg." Supposing them to have been only seven 

 years old, even (the earliest age at which noviciates are admitted), in 

 the year Tatha'gato died, " these respositories of the whole word of 

 Buddho" must have been 107 years old at the time they took their 

 leading part in the second convocation. On this point, however, 

 the Mahdwanso contains very specific information. In the 4th 

 chapter in describing that convocation, it is there stated : 



" Sabbaka'mi was at that time high priest of the world, and had already 

 attained a standing of one hundred and twenty years in the ordination of 

 1 Uposampada' Sabbaka'mi, Salho, Rewato, Kujjasobhito, Yasso, the son 

 of Ka'kondako and Sambuso, a native of Sdna : these six th^ros were the disci- 

 ples of the th^ro A'nando. Wa'sabhaga'miko and Sumano, these two the>o a 

 were the disciples of the theVo Anuradho ; these eight pious priests, in afore- 

 time, had seen the deity who was the successor of former Buddhos. 



" The priests who had assembled were twelve hundred thousand. Of ali 

 these priests, the th£ro Rewato was at that time the leader." 



As the " Uposampada" ordination could not be obtained, even in 

 the early ages of Buddhism, under the age of 20, it follows as a neces- 

 sary consequence, if the authenticity of this history is to be admitted, 

 that this hierarch was 140 years old when he presided over this con- 

 vocation. No person surely will dispute the justice of my questioning 

 the correctness of this chronology ; or take upon himself to deny 

 that the correction of the anachronism here pointed out demands a 

 curtailment of at least 60 years. 



I am perfectly aware that in suggesting this inevitable retrench- 

 ment of 60 years, I pro tanto increase and indeed, precisely double* 

 he amount of the pre-existing anachronism as to the European date 

 >f the reign of Sandracottus. All, therefore, that I am entitled to 

 leduce from this anachronism is that there is an undeniable and 

 ntentional perversion of historical data in the first century of the 

 Buddhistical era. Whether this perversion can be corrected, either 

 lirectly or inferentially, from other sources, is a question which those 

 )rientalists alone can answer, who have other collateral data on which 

 hey can rest their arguments. 

 4 z 2 



