The Dating of Pivotal Thinkers of Ancient India: Gautama Buddha, Vardhamāna Mahāvīra, Gośāla Maṅkhaliputra, and Pūraṇa Kāśyapa

The dating of Gautama Buddha has been dealt with on numerous occasions over decades, with a semi-consensus that he must have died sometime around 410–365 BCE . Unlike the historical Buddha, we have no tangible material to date three other pivotal thinkers who were contemporaneous with him, namely Vardhamāna Mahāvīra (co-founder of Jainism), Gośāla Maṅkhaliputra (co-founder of Ājīvikism), and Pūraṇa Kāśyapa, with their chronologies mostly relative to the parinirvāṇa of the Buddha. Basically, two different, mutually exclusive traditional accounts exist that link the deaths of Gautama and Mahāvīra. One of these (from primarily Buddhist sources) indicates that Vardhamāna died before Gautama, the other one (from primarily Jaina sources) states the contrary. This article proposes a solution to this puzzle, and suggests that the mutually contradictory chronologies originate from the confusion of two historical personages, namely Mahāvīra and Gośāla. The article also discusses the date of another of Ājīvika thinkers-ascetics, Pūraṇa Kāśyapa.