Bhagvad Gita Rahasya or Karmayoga Shastra VOL 02

Author(s): Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bhalchandra S Sukhtankar
Publisher: R B Tilak Puna

Page 37

PROMINENT PERSONALITIES ON THE GĪTĀ ETC. xxxvii
To speak in English dates, the Mahabhārata fight commenced in December 3102 B. C., and the 'Gītā' was preached on the morning of that day.
As the teaching of itten by St. John and had this teaching
Having placed before the reader the day by date and year on which the doctrines of the 'Gītā' were preached by Sri Krsna, we go on to state that this cannot be the date of the 'Gita' as it is before us. For the first chapter, etc., cannot have belonged to the teaching, as it was actually given. The whole story is told afterwards by some one, and that is Vyāsa undoubtedly. As the teaching of Christ is given in several books of the New Testament written by St. John and others, so Vyāsa may be taken to be the writer who first recorded this teaching in a work to be studied and recited When this was written by Vyāsa cannot be definitely stated. He must, however, have done it within a few years of the fight, and we may roughly say that the date of the original 'Gita' is somewhere about 3100 B. C.
But it is clear that the work as it is before us is not exactly that of Vyāsa. We know for certain that the original work of Vyäsa, called 'Jaya' or Victory (aar Frueira, FUTT ATA
TETSTR) was twice recast or further expanded, once by Vaisampāyana, who related "Bhārata' to Janamejaya, and again by Sauti, who related it to Saunaka and other Brahmins in Naimisāranya. This work has three names, viz. "Jaya, * Bhārata', and 'Mahabharata', and the extent of the 'Bhārata', of Vaišampāyana is also given as 24,000 ślokas, while that of the Mahābhārata is, as is well-known, one lakh of verses. The original of the Gītā', no doubt, belonged to the 'Jaya' (Victory) of Vyāsa ; but the work as it is before us belongs, in our opinion, most certainly, to the 'Bhārata' of Vaiśampāyana, and not to the Mahābhārata of Sauti. The arguments for this view are given at length in the last chapter of MahābhārataMīmāmsā; but it may here be stated briefly that the greatness of this work is described even in the Mahābhārata itself, wherein it is related that Arjuna again asked Sri Krşpa to teach him what was taught on the battlefield. But Sri Krsna answered: "What I told you then, being in the required 'Yogic mood (city to TAT), I cannot tell you again. I will