Elastic and inelastic cross sections for pion scattering on ¹²C at pion kinetic energy ranging from 50 to 260 MeV are computed using three independent methods of \pi ^\pm -nucleus optical potential, the 3\alpha -particle model of the nucleus, the equivalent local Kisslinger potential, and the Laplacian one. Reasonable fits to the measured values are obtained for ¹²C without adjusting free parameters. The ability of these methods to account for elastic, inelastic, total, and reaction cross section data are somewhat similar. The Kisslinger-based local potential is the more suitable for describing the elastic and inelastic cross sections of \pi ^\pm -nucleus scattering. It seems that the 3\alpha -particle model of ¹²C is not useful in the description of pion scattering on ¹²C at least in the {\Delta }-resonance region.

PACS numbers: 25.80.Dj, 25.80.Ek, 24.10.Eq, 21.60.Ev