for Buddha's death. Bimbisara ascended the throne 198 years according to the Matsya-Purana, and 193 years according to the Vayu-Purana, before the first Nanda. If the year 403 B.C. marks the accession of the Nandas, Bimbisara according to the Matsya-Purana began to reign in 601 B.C., and according to the Vayu-Purana in 590 B.C. Between Bimbisara's accession in 603 B.C. and the end of Açoka of Magadha there intervene, according to the statements of the Buddhists, 375 years. If with this we compare the dates of the reigns in the list of kings in the Vayu-Purana from Bimbisara to Açoka, we get 378 years from the first year of Bimbisara to the last year of Açoka. There is also another fact which agrees with the era 543 _B.C._ According to the statements of the Singhalese the second synod of the Buddhists was held 100 or 110 years after Buddha's death, in the reign of Kalaçoka, _i.e._ in 443 or 433 B.C. ("Mahavança," ed. Turnour, p. 15). Of these two statements it is obvious that the more definite, 110 years, is more deserving of credit. According to the detailed statements of the Singhalese for the time of the separate reigns, Kalaçoka's reign begins 90 years after Buddha's death, _i.e._ 453; he reigns 28 years according to the Singhalese, _i.e._ if we reckon up the single items from Chandragupta (the Nandas 80, and Kalaçoka's sons 22 years) from 453 to 425 B.C. In this way the era of the Singhalese and the year of Buddha's death are completely justified. Still the year is not wholly beyond a doubt. According to the statement of the native Singhalese, Chandragupta ascended the throne 162 years (and the various items agree with this total) after Buddha's death, _i.e._ 162 years after the year 543 B.C., and therefore in the year 381 B.C., but we know that his accession took place in 315 B.C. Here we find an error of 66 years, which however we have already removed by adopting the Brahmanic statement of 88 years for the dynasty of the Nandas instead of the 22 years of the Singhalese. Further, it does not agree with the era of 543 B.C., when we are told by the Singhalese that the third Buddhist synod was held 118 years after the second, _i.e._ 228 years after Buddha's death. We know from inscriptions that this synod met in the seventeenth year of Açoka, Chandragupta's second successor. Açoka reigned from 265 to 228, or from 263 to 226 B.C.: his seventeenth year reckoned from 265 would be 249 B.C.; if we add to this 228 years we get 477 B.C. for the year of Buddha's death; thus we have here again the same error of 66 years. Lastly, it does not agree with the era of 543 B.C. when we are told that the fourth Buddhist synod was held 400 years after the death of Buddha, under Kanishka, king of Cashmere. Kanishka is a contemporary of Augustus and Antonius (Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 2, 412, 413); and according to this statement, therefore, Buddha would have died about the year 400 B.C. As the number of 400 years given for the fourth synod is