Bhagwad Gita Vivechanatmak Shabdakosh

Author(s): Prahlad C Divanji
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt Ltd

Page 20

Critical Word-Index to the Bhagavadgitā
resolved to apply my time and energy to the task of preparing an Index-Verborum to the Bhagavadgitä, which has already taken its place in the literature of the world and is, therefore, a work of more frequent reference to research scholars in all the civilised countries, than many others in the field of Sanskrit literature.
When I did so, I hoped to be able to place before the public a complete index within about six month's time. But in course of time I was informed that there were already such indices in the field, namely, (1) that appended to the edition of the work in the Anandāśram Sanskrit Series, (2) that in the Concordance of the Upanişads and the Bhagawad gūtā by Col. Jacob and (3) that prepared by Mahātmā Gāndhi and published by the Navajivan Prakāśan Mandir, Ahmedabad as a separate booklet under the title Gitāpadārthakoșa. Some time was, therefore, taken up in obtaining copies of the said works and examining them. Having done so, I found that each of them had been based on some one edition of the work and had taken no note of the variae lectiones, of whose existence even in the case of the Vulgate there was ample evidence in the commentaries of the writers of the different schools beginning with Sankarācārya, and of the simple words of which the compound words had been made up. Moreover all of them, having been prepared prior to A.D. 1930, when Dr. Schrader first brought a separate Kāśmir recension to the notice of the world of Oriental scholars, could not naturally have taken any notice of the said recension. I also found that the A. S. Series edition contained several mistakes, that Jacob's work contained the words of the Gitā mixed up with those of the 66 Upanişads which he had consulted for comparison and contained no solutions of compounds and no list of words common to the simple and compound words and that the Ahmedabad Index was not likely to be useful to the scholars engaged in linguistic and historical researches because it did not contain an exhaustive mention of all the references in the case of certain words, did not contain a uniform order of arrangement throughout and did not take note of the simple words included in compound words and a list of the units common to the simple and compound words. I, therefore, concluded that there was sufficient scope for a carefully-planned, exhaustive and critical index such as I had in view.
II. Primary Word-Units and the Critical Apparatus for them.
An attempt has been made to make this such an index by the (a) l'he Vulgate with
adoption of the following means and method. The Commentaries.
text of the work as printed in the popular large
typed Nirnaya Sāgar Press edition has been taken as the editio princeps for getting all the Primary Word-Units i. e. to say,