Date of the Buddha and RV

[L.S.Cousins]

  Madhav Deshpande writes:


>The date of the Buddha and the date of the RV are not directly related.
>While it is the dase that the Buddhist suttas like the Tevijja Sutta refer
>to Irubbeda (=RV) among other Vedas, the Suttas refer to the authors of
>the Vedic mantras (ye te mantaana.m kattaaro isayo) as ancient
>personalities (poraa.naa).  This simply indicates a relative choronology
>between the Vedic texts like the RV and the Buddhist tradition reflected
>the the Pali canon, and there is no easy way of linking the dates of the
>Buddha and the RV in such a way that if the date of the  Buddha fluctuates
>by a few hundred years, the date of the RV must correspondingly fluctuate
>by the same.  Each of these dates, apart from their obvious relative
>chronolgy, must be treated as independent values to be determined by
>unrelated independent evidence.

Isn't that going a bit far ?  Surely the date of RV is partly
dependent on the dating of subsequent Vedic literature of various
kinds ? Are you prepared to say that the date of the Upani.sads is
unrelated to the dating of the Buddha and Mahaaviira ?

Lance Cousins

MANCHESTER, UK

CURRENT EMAIL ADDRESS:
Email: L.S.Cousins at nessie.mcc.ac.uk