Zend Avesta Part 01

SR No.: 007671
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: James Darmesteter
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1895
Total Pages: 2695
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 1856

INTRODUCTION
TO
BHAGAVAD GITÂ.
It has become quite a literary commonplace, that-to borrow the words of Professor Max Müller in one of his recent lectures-history, in the ordinary sense of the word, is almost unknown in Indian literature'. And it is certainly a remarkable irony of fate, that we should be obliged to make this remark on the very threshold of an introduction to the Bhagavadgita ; for according to the eminent French philosopher, Cousin?, this great deficiency in Sanskrit literalure is due, in no inconsiderable measure, to the doctrines propounded in the Bhagavadgità itself. But however that may be, this much is certain, that the student of the Bhagavadgita must, for the present, go without that reliable historical information touching the author of the work, the time at which it was composed, and even the place it occupies in literature, which one naturally desires, when catering upon the study of any work. More especially in an attempt like the present, intended as it mainly is for Audents of the history of religion, I should have been better pleased, if I could, in this Introduction, have concentrated to a focus, as it were, only those well ascertained historical results, on which there is something like a consensus of opinion among persons qualified to judge. But there is no cxaggeration in saying, that it is almost impossible to lay down even a single proposition respecting any important
Hibbert Lectures, p. 131. 'Lectard on the History of Modern Philosophy (translated by O. W. Wight). vol. I, pp. 49. 50. At p. 433 key of the second volume, M. Cousin gives a fonal view of the doctrine of the Gita See also Mr. Maurice's and Kitter's Hmories of Philosopby.
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