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 1883

28
BHAGAVADGITA.
middle of the seventh century A.C. The doubt which the late Dr. Bhau Dåjî had cast upon its correctness! by impugning the received date of king Harshavardhana, appears to me to have been satisfactorily disposed of by the paper of my friend Professor R. G. Bhandarkar on the Kâlukya dates?. In the Kadambarî, then, we have testimony to the existence of the Bhagavadgita in the middle of the seventh century A. C. For in that work, which, as is well known, abounds with equivoques, we have a passage which compares the royal palace to the Maha. bharata, both being 'Anantagitåkarnanananditanaram?' which, as applied to the royal palace, means 'in which the people were delighted by hearing innumerable songs;' and as applied to the Mahâbhârata means 'in which Arguna was delighted at hearing the Anantagitâ.' Anantagitâ is evidently only another name here for Bhagavadgita. The conclusion deducible from this fact is not merely that the Gîtà existed, but that it existed as a recognised portion of the Bharata, in the seventh century A.C. Now the Kadambarî shows, in numerous passages, in what high esteem the Mahâbhârata was held in its days. The queen Vilasavati used to attend at those readings and expositions of the Mahâbhârata, which have continued down to our own times; and it was even then regarded as a sacred work of extremely high authority, in the same way as it is now. It follows, therefore, that the Gîtâ must have been several centuries old in the time of Bånabhatta.
Prior in tinie to Bana is the Indian Shakespeare, Kalidasa, as he is referred to in Banabhatta's Harshakarita., and also in a copperplate inscription of the early part of the seventh century, as a poet who had then already acquired a high reputations. Unfortunately, it is not yet possible to fix exactly the date at which Kalidasa Aourished. Still,
Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. viii, p. ago; and see, too, Indian Antiquary, vol. vi, p. 61 (Dr. Buhler).
• Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xiv, p. 16 seq.
· P. 182 (Táránátha's ed.) See F. E Hall's Vasavadaitâ, p. 14 note. . See Indian Antiquary, vol. V, p. 70.
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