1837.] Examination of the PtiU Buddhistical Annals. 725 



and, on the other, that only 135 years thereafter, the head of the 

 church was of the sixth generation, and at that time of the advanced 

 age of seventy-two years. 



It is not possible, therefore, to recognize the correctness of any of 

 these dates, which are based on pretended prophecies, and in rejecting 

 them as fictious we are reduced to the necessity of adjusting the 

 events comprised in these three centuries by two points only, on which 

 alone any reliance can be placed, viz : the Buddhist era of Sa'kya's 

 death, B. C. 543, and the European age of Sandracottus, (about) 

 B. C. 325. If (as is stated) Sandracottus reigned *34 years, his 

 son Bindusa'ro 28 years, and the third convocation was held in the 

 17th year of Asoko's inauguration and 2 1st of his reign, we shall 

 have to place the third convocation in B. C. 242 instead of B. C. 

 307, which (as the 18th of Asoko falls to the 1st of the Ceylonese 

 monarch Dewa nanpiyatisso) would accord with the preceding ad- 

 justment of the Ceylonese chronology within the trifling amount of 

 six years. 



Although the general result of this adjustment only produces an 

 alteration in the Buddhistical chronology of this period amounting to 

 65 years, still it is one calculated to occasion an extensive derangement 

 in the foregoing table, from the very circumstance of its assumed 

 claim to minute accuracy. 



I do not despair, however, of seeing these discrepancies accounted 

 for in due course of time. We know that the Brahminical authorities 

 arrange the Maghada line of succession differently from the Buddhis- 

 tical. There is evidently some confusion in the durations assigned to 

 the reigns of the ten Nandos. But whenever, or by whatever means, 

 the adjustments are made, they must be made, to the limited extent 

 of the above anachronism, in direct defiance of the Buddhistical 

 authorities extant in Ceylon ; and by hitting blots, and detecting 

 inaccuracies which have inadvertently escaped the notice of the pious 

 impostors who have spared no pains in endeavouring to interweave 

 the prophetic and falsified chronology of India and of Ceylon into 

 each other. 



As an illustration of their ingenuity, I give the following extract 

 from another part of Buddhaghoso's Atfhakathd. 



II In the feighteenth year of the reign of Aja'tasatto, the supreme Buddho 

 attained Parinibbanan. In that very year, prince Wijayo, the son of prince 

 Si'ho, and the first monarch of Tambapanni, repairing to this Island, rendered 



* I am disposed to adopt the reading of the last extract of the Aithalcathd 

 which makes this term " twenty-four years." 

 t This appears to be a clerical error for eight. 



