The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXIV, Part 1-2, 1976 - Khamkoo

348 REVIEW AR'f!CLE
Also fictitious is Manit's du£iya .Sakaraja, beginning at a date
corresponding to A.D. 17. It is only made necessary by the artificial
sequence into which he has fitted the eras, although it does coincide with
a local tradition.s7
Of course, in altering the meaning of the eras, Manit bad to find
explanations for the very explicit statements of TS concerning the
Buddhist era and such well known figures as Ajatasatru and Maha
Kassapa. His explanations are found in note 45, pp. 38-39, note 55,
pp. 43-45, and note 170, pp. 70-71.
In the first of these notes he declares that Ajatasatru and Maba
Kassapa of TS are not the persons of those names known from Buddhist
)ore, but rather local figures from northern Thailand. He identifies
Ajatasatru with King Ajutaraja, ignoring the logic of the narrative that
Kassapa first cut the era with Ajatasatru, then took relics to Yonaka
where he met Ajutaraja. Maha Kassapa himself, in note 55, has become
the Kassapa-Matanga who introduced Buddhism into China about 65
A.D.
As for the many explicit remarks about dates in "the Buddhist era",
or so many years "after the Buddha had entered nir'vana", Manit has
provided a long explanation in note 170, pp. 70-71, in order to circumvent
the difficulties.
He starts by saying that since the "Buddhist era" of the text does
not fit the known facts of B. E., it must be something else, even though
the reason it does not fit is because of his own arbitrary arrangement.
Then he reasons that:
- bra~ya b"tmdhanati and the Buddha of the text died in the same
year.
- The Buddhist religion then spread from "China down to the area
of yonaka", which is his interpretation of the statement in
paragraph 140 that the Buddhist religion "was only flourishing
from mo'ah rajagth down to mo'an yuan jiin saen".
- The religion of China at that time was Taoism.
- bra~y'a bandhanati must have been a strong supporter of Taoism
and considered as a sort of angel (brahmadeva) of Taoism.
57) See below concerning the era of bandhumatti.