________________
786
GITA-RAHASYA OR KARMA-YOGA
thousand stanzas. But Rao Bahadur Vaidya has shown in the first Appendix to his criticism in English on the Mahābhārata, that the present edition of the Mahābhārata consists of less than that number of stanzas, and that we do not arrive at that total, even by adding the Harivamsa to it. * Nevertheless, there is no reason for not accepting the poāition that the larger book, which came into existence when the Bhārata became the Mahābhārata, must have been more or less the same as the present edition of the Mahābhārata. I have stated above that this Mahābhārata makes a mention of the Nirukta of Yāska and of Manu-Samhitā, and that the Gītā even mentions the Brahma-Sūtras. The other proofs which are available for fixing the date of the Mahābhārata are as follows:
(1) This book of eighteen parvas and the Harivamsa, found their way into the Java and Bali Islands before Saka 400 to 500; and it has been translated into the ancient language of those places known as Kavi'; and the following eight parras of that translation, namely, the Adi, Virāta, Udyoga, Bhisma, Aśramavāsi, Musala, Prästhānika, and Svargārohana parvas are now available; and some of them have been printed. But, although the translation has been made into the Kavi language, the original Sanskrit stanzas from the Mahābhārata have been retained in many places. I have considered some of the stanzas from the Udyogaparva. All these stanzas can be found here and there in the chapters of the Udyogaparva of the Calcutta edition of the present Mahābhārata. This proves that the Mahābhārata of a hundred thousand stanzas had become authoritative in India at least 200 years before Saka 400; because, it would otherwise not have been necessary at all to take it into the Java and Bali Islands. The Mahābhārata has also been translated into the Tibetan language, but, that is later in point of time than this. *
**The Mahabharata, a Criticism" p. 185. Wherever this criticism of Rao Bahadur Vaidya on the Mahābhārata has been referred to, this book is meant.
+ See the reference to the Mahābhārata of the Java Island at pp. 32-38 of the issue of the Modern Review for July 1914. A reference to the Mahābhārata in the Tibetan language has been made in Rockhill's Life of the Buddha, p. 228, Note I.
