Bhagwad Gita Vivechanatmak Shabdakosh

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

Page 23

Introduction
or other data of a reliable character. It was, therefore, condemned as unauthoritative by Prof. Otto Schrader and M. Pritz.'
In 1930, however, the former brought out his edition of the Kasmir Recension of the Text of the Bhagavad gitā through M. Kolhammar, Stuttgard, on the basis of (1). Abhinavagupta's commentary published by the N. S. Press, Bombay in 1912 along with the text and other commentaries, (2) MS. No. 3271 at the India Office Library of the work with the commentary of Rāmakantha alias Rāmakavi named Sarvatobhadra and (3) a birch-bark MS. of the bare text upto 8. 18, bearing No. 676) D at the MSS. Library at the British Museum. This recension had no connection with the text as attempted to be re-constructed by Hamsayogin but had neverthless several other distinguishing features. They were :-(1) That it contained 14 complete and 4 half stanzas, of which there was no trace in the Vulgate ; (2) that the number of the different readings which it contained was 282, and (3) that the stanzas numbered 2. 66-67 in the Vulgate did not form part of it. The birchbark MS. had the Vulgate stanza 5. 19 not at its proper place and also not after 6.9 as in the commentaries but that must obviously have been due to the inadvertance of its copyist. Moreover, the existence of the commentary of Abhinavagupta thereon and that of other previous ones referred to thereina showed that said recension had been recognised for several centuries in Kāśmir either as the only one known to the Pandits there or as the only one acceptable to them as the authoritative one. Schrader thought that, such a recension must have been current in that province between the latter half of the 10th century when Rāmakantha was believed to have flourished and the 14th century when the Pratyabhijñā school, to which Abhinavagupta belonged, is believed to have become extinct.
The interest created by this publication led Pandit Laxman Raina Brahmachari of Srinagar to publish separately the text with the commentary of Abhinavagupta in A. D. 1933. Mr. S. N. Tad patrikar of Poona was then inspired to collect together and study several MSS. of the work in the Sāradā and Nāgari scripts at the Bhandarkar Institute and to publish in A. D. 1934 a critical edition of the work as the Pant
1. See Otto Schrader's paper thereon in the Garbe Festschrift Volume (1927) and that of M. Pritz in ZDMG., 1930. Rajavaidya Jivarām Kālidās of Gondal, Käthiavad too has examined this edition and shown how the editor has re-written the Gita from his own imaginary stand-point (Sri Bhngavadgita (Gondal, 1937) Introduction pp. 16-17).
2. Dr. T. R. Chintamani has, in his Introduction to the Madras. University edition of this recension with the commentary of Rāmakanţha named Sarvatobhadra, stated (pp. xxxvii-xxxix) that prior to Abhinavagupta, 5 other persons, namely (1) Vasugupta, the founder of the Trika Saivism of Kāśmir and the author of the Sivasútra (8th cent. A.D.), (2) Anandavardhana, (3) Ramakantha, (4) Bhāskara, and (5) Lasakāka, had commented upon this receasion of the Gita.
B.G.I. ii