Bhagwad Gita Vivechanatmak Shabdakosh

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

Page 30

Critical Word-Index to the Bhagavad gitā
he says, he had chanced to secure.' 'The above is not, therefore, his final view and it is just possible that he may modify it.2 On the other hand although there are some plausible grounds for the hypothesis that there may be in existence a recension of the Gitä differing from that commented upon by Sankara and the other non-Käśmirian commentators who followed him, no MS. of a recension answering to the description contained in Bhīşmaparvan 43.7 has yet come to light. There is, however, no reasonable ground for believing, as Sāstri Jivarām has tried to establish by his fresh edition of the Gità published in 1941 of a Benares MS. of the work dated Samvat 1665 (A. D. 1608-09), that the additional stanzas and half-stanzas found in the MSS. of the Kāśmir recension are the survivors of those 45 which, if found, would go to make up the 745 spoken of in the Bhişmaparvan, because the distribution of the stanzas in the Kāśmir recension as put forth even by the Sāstri does not tally with that given in the said Bhişmaparvan stanza. Therefore this much is certain that whether Dr. Belvalkar does or does not change his views“ as to the original extent of the Gitā as it may have existed prior to its being separated from the Mahabhārata, the existence of the Kāśmir recension must be ascribed to some cause other than the existence of two such recensions prior to the time of Sarkara as Schrader bas postulated, i. e. to say, one as commented upon by Sankara, whether or not after some one had added 29 stanzas thereto, and the other as containing 745 stanzas distributed amongst the speakers as described in the Bhişmaparvan.
What can that cause be ? To me, it appears to be one of the following two, namely :-(1) The MSS. before Sankara when he must have decided to write a Bhāsya thereon must not have uni
1. NIA, II, p. 214, f n. 2.
2. The unpublished Commentary of which a Ms. had been secured by Dr. Belvalkar has been found to be that of Anandavardhana and to have been completed in A.D. 1680. The Doctor himself had, in 1941, edited that commentary together with the text as approved by that commentator but it had not come to my notice till this Introduction was drafted. It appears from the Introduction thereto that he has modified his view considerably.
3, he learned 1 octor characterised the Benares MS. of Sastri Jivaram as "A Fake Bhagavadgitā MS." in his article bearing that caption which appeared at pp. 21-31 of the Jornal of the Jha Research Institute, Allahabad, Vol. I. Pt. I, published in November 1943.
4. In the article referred to in the previous foot-note and also in his Introduction to his edition of the Gita with the commentary of Anand vardhana, which appears to have been published in 1941 but had not come to my notice till in April 1945 it was found included in the Bibliography appearing in the Poona Orientalist Vol. IX, 1-2, the said Doctor admits that there is a separate Kāśmir recension of the Gitā but still maintains that it must be of a date later than that of Sankara because it systematically tries to normalize the archaic grammar and syntax of the current text,