Indian Antiquary Vol 47

SR No.: 032539
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 386
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 381

GARBE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BHAGAVADGITA
194, 200) has done, who with Lassen and Weber accepts the third century A.D.54 The Gità as it has come down to us cannot be much later than this. The history of the development of the Mahabharata text teaches that. [p. 60] That the revision cannot be older depends principally on further reasons to be investigwted. Such reasons are afforded by the following considerations.
In a verse of the Bhag. (XII. 22) which belongs to the revised version, and in the Nrisimhata. Upanishad, II. 9.2, the two words Upadrashtri (the overseer) and Anumantri (the consenter) stand side by side, and the latter of these two words is so very rare that none can doubt the historical relation of the two passages. As in all other relations to the Upanishad literature the Bhag. is the borrowing party, so in this case also, we have to regard in this passage of the Nși-Ta-Upanishad the prototype, and in the first quarter of Bhag. XIII. 2 the copy thereof, because the word Anumantri, as an epithet of one form of the highest spirit, has been preserved in its originality in the Nri-Ta-Upanishad through the entire contents of the text; since Anumantri is synonymous with Anujnatri formerly used in this Upanishad, and this latter is spoken of as existing as a form of the Atman in the second part (II. 2.8, 10, 13, 14; 3, 1, 6.14; 8, 6, 7; 9.33 here Anujñatri is used by the side of Upadrashtri). Now Weber, Ind. Lit. Gesch. p. 186 (- English Trans., p. 167) har placed the Nri.-Tà. Upanishad in the 4th century A.D., though later, Ind. Str. IX, 62, 63, this date is reiterated only with reservation. Aş a matter of fact, however, it follows from Weber's statements at the latter place that the reason on which he has based this date is not tenable. Weber had had, with regard to many Indian works, a disposition to bring them down chronologically, and this is true also of the Nri.-Ta.- Upanishad. In any case, however, this secondary Upanishad-and with it the Utlaratápaniya, latterly attached thereto-that comes into consideration as the source of the above-mentioned verge of the Bhag. should be placed in post-Christian period; and its being utilized by the revisor of the
Bhag. points to the fact that he must not have in any case lived earlier than the second century A.D. The striking remark of John Davies, The Bhag., p. 192, and ff.,
The manifold rocemblances which the Gud bears in thought and expression to the Upanishads of the oldest and intermediary classes, do not prove the antiquity of the poem, because this is to be regarded simply ma dependence of the Gild on toxta partly belonging to a considerably high antiquity. Telang, in the notes to his translation of the poem, SBE. VIII, has referred to numerous parallelisme from the Brih. Chan. Kaus., fta, Katha, Munda, Prasna, Maitra, and Svelds. Upanishads, but so far a Ioan 10, verbal or almost verbal borrowing of verses or parts thereof is confined to the Katha and Svends. Upanishade :
Bhagavadgted II, 10 = Katha H. 19.
II, 20 = Katha II. 18. . III, 12 = Katha III. 19 (cf. VI. 7.)
V, 18 = Braid III, 18. . VIII, 9= Sveta III. 8.
VII, 11=Katha II. 15. ., XIII, 13, 14 = Soord III. 16, 17.
XV, 1= Katha VI. 1. For fixing the date of thó Bhag. ita relationship with the later Upanishade only could be turned to any account, M indeed I shall soon below similarly utili, one woh relationship (of the Bhag.) with the Nolaimhaldpint, wdoubtedly a secondary Upanishad.