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736
GĪTĀ-RAHASYA OR KARMA-YOGA
Whether one considers the similarity of diction, or the similarity of subject matter, or the six or seven references to the Gitā, which we find in the Mahābhārata, one cannot but come to the conclusion that the Gītā is a part of the Mahābhārata, and that the same man who wrote the Mahabhārata as it now exists, must also have written the Gitā as it now exists. But, I have seen people attempting to disregard all those proofs, and to dispose of them with scant respect in some way or other, and to prove that the Gitä is an interpolation. But, in my opinion, the line of reasoning adopted by these critics, who treat external evidence as no evidence, and who yield to the domination of the demon of doubt in their hearts, is illogical, and therefore, unacceptable. If it could not be reasonably explained why the Gitā should be a part of the Mahābhārata, it would be a different matter, But, when it is proved, as has been stated in the beginning of this Appendix, that (i) the Gitā is not a purely devotional treatise, or one which deals purely with Vedānta ; that (ii) it was necessary to preach the Activistic Gītā, in order to explain the principles of Morality, or the undercurrents which guided the lives of exenıplary great men, as described in the Mahābhārata, and that (iii) there was no better place, even from the poetic view-point, for placing the Gitā, than the place in which it appears in the Mahābhārata, one comes to the necessary conclusion that the Gitā has been included for proper reasons and at the proper place in the Mahābhārata, and that it is not an interpolation. The Rāmāyana is also an excellent and a universally respected archaic epic like the Mahābhārata ; and in it also the principles of veracity, filial duty, maternal duty, regal duty etc., have been cleverly explained with reference to the various incidents in it. But, as it was not the original intention of Vālmiki to make that epic "replete with many incidents, full of numerous doctrines regarding Morality and Immorality, and capable of giving to everybody exemplary illustrations of properly moral lives", it goes without saying that the importance of the Mahābhārata is greater than that of the Rāmāyana, from the point of view of the decisions contained in them respectively with reference to Morality and
