________________
15. GITA
stories about a war might have been in existence for a long time but it was not written down well into the Christian era and that in Sanskrit language, which we know, came into existence only after the second century AD.
Social and Economic Aspects of the BHAGAVAD-GITA http://www.geocities.com/dialecticalmethod/mar1.html D.D. Kosambi - Mathematician, Historian, Marxist, Peace Activist
This helps date the work as somewhere between 150-350 AD, nearer the later than the earlier date. The ideas are older, not original, except perhaps the novel use of bhakti. The language is high classical Sanskrit such as could not have been written much before the Guptas, though the metre still shows the occasional irregularity (G. 8. 10d, 8. 11 b, 15. 3a, &c) in tristubhs, characteristic of the M'bh as a whole. The Sanskrit of the high Gupta period, shortly after the time of the Gita, would have been more careful in versification.
It is known in any case that the M'bh and the Puranas suffered a major revisions in the period given above. The M'bh in particular was in the hands of Brahmins belonging to the Bhrgu clan, who inflated it to about its present bulk (though the process of inflation continued afterwards) before the Gupta age came to flower.
How much of these are true?
So any attempt to a scripture truth out of it will eventually lead to fallacies. Here is the result of Dr. D.D. Kosambi's research on the warriors on the battle field.
391