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552 The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-gitā [CH. XIV as contributory evidence in favour of the high antiquity of the Gitā. The Gītā may have been a work of the Bhāgavata school written long before the composition of the Mahā-bhārata, and may have been written on the basis of the Bhārata legend, on which the Mahā-bhārata was based. It is not improbable that the Gitā, which summarized the older teachings of the Bhāgavata school, was incorporated into the Mahā-bhārata, during one of its revisions, by reason of the sacredness that it had attained at the time.
