Let's first dispense with certain chronological questions. There are two chronologies for the life of the Buddha because there are two ways or two arguments of calculating his birth and these derive from internal evidence, evidence given by differing Buddhist traditions, rather than external or independent evidence. This needn't trouble you too much. There is very little, if any, external evidence for the life of Jesus either or for many other important religious figures.

The Sri Lankan chronicles, the Dipavamsa and the Mahavamsa, tell us that the Buddha was born 298 years before the coronation of King Asoka (a person rather important to the transformation of Buddhism from a sectarian to a pan-Asian and then a world religion, who we will meet again). According to these chronicles Asoka began his reign in 326 BCE (Before the Coka, meaning that he would have been born in 448 BCE.

So there are three possible birth dates - 624, 566, or 448 BCE - and spirited arguments and defenders for all three. The issue is probably not capable of resolution although, for what it's worth, most scholars accept either 566 or 448 BCE.

Whatever the case may be, it is certain that the period from the sixth to the

mmon Era). This would place the Buddha's birth in 624 BCE. But the date for Asoka's coronation is given as 268 or 267 BCE by certain Greek texts and this would place the Buddha's birth later on in around 566 BCE. These two pairs of dates are referred to as "the long chronology." A "short chronology" is derived from Indian sources and their Chinese and Tibetan translations. These place the Buddha's birth 180 years before the cornonotion of king Asofourth centuries BCE were centuries of uncommon transformation and production throughout the ancient world. Note the following, for instance:

• In Greece the philosophical thinking (pre-Socratic) that would produce Socrates and then Western philosophy (and perhaps modern culture) was exploding.
• In China one finds the prophets and schools of Confucius and Lao-tzu forming.
• In India the births of the religions of Jainism and Buddhism.
• The notion of far reaching empires took hold spreading cultures, languages, religions, new forms of thought: The Hellenic empire of Alexander the Great; the Ch'in and Han dynasties in China; the empires of Darius and Cyrus in Persia; the Maura dynasty in India
• Urban centers rather than rural life became the focal point around which life was arranged, leading to new styles of politics, new ways for imagining how life should be lived.

During this time of ferment and change old ways were losing their value as they lost their power to maintain order and certainty. Persons were ripe for the introduction of new forms of thought and spirituality.