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794
GITA-RAHASYA OR KARMA-YOGA
the Gitā must be at least 100 to 200 years earlier in point of time than the earliest of these Purānas. One cannot take the commencemert of the age of the Purānas at later than the second century A. D.; and therefore, the date of the Gitā is taken back at any rate to somewhere about the beginning of the Saka era
(5) It has been stated above that both Kālidāsa and Bāna knew about the Gitā. The dramas of Bhāsa, who lived before Kālidäsa, have been recently published. In the drama called Karnabhāra, out of these dramas, we find the following as the twelfth stanza:
hato 'pi labhate svargań jitvā tu labhate yasah 1
ubhe bahumate loke nūsti nişphalatā rane il This stanza is exactly the same as the stanza : "hato va prāpsyasi suargam” etc (Gi. 2. 37); and, as it is proved from the other dramas of Bhāsa that he was fully acquainted with the Mahābhārata, one can safely draw the conclusion that in writing the stanza mentioned above, he had in mind the stanza in the Gitā referred to above. It, therefore, follows that the Mahābhārata and the Gitä existed before the date of Bhāsa. Pandit Ganapati Shastri has proved that Bhāsa must have lived 200 to 300 years before the Saka era. But, some are of the opinion that he lived 100 to 200 years after the Saka era. Even if this latter opinion is correct, the Mahābhārata and the Gītā must have become commonly accepted books at least 100 to 200 years before the date of Bhāsa, that is to say, about the beginning of the Saka era.
(6) But, the late Mr. Tryambak Gurunath Kale has published in the English magazine issued by the Gurukul and called the Vedic Magazine, a forcible proof about old writers having adopted stanzas from the Gitā (Vol. 7, Nos. 6 and 7 pp. 528-532, Märgaśīrşa and Pausa Samvat 1970). Before this publication, Western Sanskritists were of opinion that the Gitā was not found referred to in any books more ancient than the Sanskrit dramas or the Purānas, e. g., in the Sūtra treatises etc.; and that therefore, the Gitā must have been written shortly after the age of the Sūtras, that is to say, in about the second century of the Christian era. But the late Mr. Kale.
