ABSTRACT
This has the virtue of bringing the Sinhalese traditions into line with Bhavya’s Sammatīya account If we date Aśoka’s accession at 52 years after the accession of Candragupta in c. 313 BC,128 then the work of the founder of the Pudgalavādins will take place around 261 BC with Moggalliputta’s response and the third communal recitation, if there was one, at c. 243 BC. The beginning of the controversies would be 63 years before Aśoka, i.e. c. 324 BC under Mahāpadma Nanda. We know of course that a Nanda was ruling in Magadha at the time of Alexander’s invasion (327-324 BC). This would imply a date for the beginning of the Buddhist era btween 400 and 420 BC. Other evidence would also seem to support a date close to the end of the fifth century BC.129
