caa a22 4500 388065397 CHVBK 20180307125131.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e199901 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1017/S0041977X00017572 doi S0041977X00017572 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.1017/S0041977X00017572 Ruegg D. Seyfort A New Publication on the Date and Historiography of the Buddha's Decease (nirvāa): a Review Article [Elektronische Daten] [D. Seyfort Ruegg] The date of the demise, or (Mahapāri)Nirvāa, of the historical Buddha Śākyamuni is one of the key chronological markers in early Indian history, one which has therefore been of pivotal importance to modern scholarship on ancient India. Whilst the dates of the conquest of Gandhāara and Sindh by the Achaemenid empire and the dates of Alexander's campaigns in the subcontinent are among the very oldest established for the history of north-western India, that of the Nirvāna of the Buddha has long been regarded as the oldest more or less fixed chronological value in the history of north-eastern India. The dating of the Buddha has a crucial significance for the dates of certain ancient Indian kings-Bimbisara of Magadha and Prasenajit (Pasenadi) of Kosala -and for that of the Jain Tīrthakara Mahāvīra, for the development of Jainism and the Śramaa movement, and for the earlier history of the Brahmanical religion and the oldest Indian philosophy, including the thought of the Upaniads. Moreover, quite apart from its importance for South Asia alone, the consensus (apparently) obtaining among scholars about the time of the Buddha contributed to the elaboration by Karl Jaspers, in his book of 1955 entitled Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte, of the concept of an Axial Age (‘Achsenzeit') around 500 B.C. when a number of epoch-making events are thought to have taken place in the ancient Eurasian world. Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1999 Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Cambridge University Press 62/1(1999-01), 82-87 0041-977X 62:1<82 1999 62 BSO https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X00017572 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X00017572 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Ruegg D. Seyfort NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Cambridge University Press 62/1(1999-01), 82-87 0041-977X 62:1<82 1999 62 BSO CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge