The mistake of the Southern Buddhists lies in dating the Nirvana of
Sanggyas Pan-chhen from the actual day of his death, whereas, as above
stated, He had reached it over twenty years previous to his
disincarnation. Chronologically, the Southerners are right, both in
dating His death in 543 "B.C.," and one of the great Councils at 100
years after the latter event. But the Tibetan Chohans, who possess all
the documents relating to the last twenty-four years of His external and
internal life--of which no philologist knows anything--can show that
there is no real discrepancy between the Tibetan and the Ceylonese
chronologies as stated by the Western Orientalists.* For the profane,
the Exalted One was born in the sixty-eighth year of the Burmese
Eeatzana era, established by Eeatzana (Anjana), King of Dewaha; for the
initiated--in the forty-eighth year of that era, on a Friday of the
waxing moon, of May. And it was in 563 before the Christian chronology
that Tathagata reached his full Nirvana, dying, as correctly stated by
Mahavana--in 543, on the very day when Vijaya landed with his companions
in Ceylon--as prophesied by Loka-ratha, our Buddha.
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