Indian Antiquary Vol 02

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 317

OCTOBER, 1873.]
By the decree of God, in the city of Bejápúr, [the mausoleum of?] the Má Çáheb Shahzádi is contiguous to the mosk. In the city of Bejápúr and Námújpúri the expenses of the mosk, the foundation of the edifice, and the building, were defrayed by the Sirkár of the Pádesháh 'Aly 'Adil Sháb.
CHRISTIAN TRACES IN THE BHAGAVAD GITA.
And here we do not need to depart from the results of modern criticism of the age of the Bhagavad-Gita. On the one hand it is oertain that it dates after Buddha, and on the other hand there is the strongest reason to believe that its composition must be attributed to a period terminating several centuries after the commencement of the Christian era.
TRACES IN THE BHAGAVAD-GITA OF CHRISTIAN WRITINGS AND IDEAS. From the Appendix to Dr. Lorinser's Bhagavad-Gita." To prove that in the manifold and often surprising coincidence of thoughts and expressions in the Bhagavad-Gita, as well with single passages in the New Testament, as with the common Christian ideas and principles, we have no accidental similarities, but that an actual borrowing has taken place, it may not be superfluous to exhibit in a collective form the results already won, and from them to draw some further conclusions which give such a high degree of probability to the opinion that the doctrines of the Bhagavad-Gita are not only an eclectic mixture of different Indian philosophies, but have also a strong infusion at least of ideas and sayings taken over from Christianity, that it may almost lay claim to certainty.
the renowned philosopher of the Vedanta school, lived. According to the usual hypothesis, resting, it must be confessed, on weighty reasons, which however can make no olaim to irrefragable certainty, Sankara lived in the 8th century after Christ. Hence Lassen infers that the Bhagavad-Gita must have been composed some five centuries earlier, i. e. in the third century after Christ. If this supposition is correct (and it must not be forgotten that it only prófesses to give the earliest date at which the Bhagavad-Gita could have been composed), it is clear that the composer of the poem might have had some acquaintance with the doctrines and sacred records of Christianity. For we know that there were already at that time Christian communities in India, in which from Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. lib. V. cap. 10) we learn that Panteenus, a missionary who had penetrated to India as early as the second century, found, and brought to Alexandria on his return, a copy of the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, which had apparently been taken there by the apostle Bartholomew. Further, and this is of peculiar importance in the present discussion, there already existed an Indian translation of the New Testament, of which we have positive proof in the writings of St. Chrysostom, which seems to have been till now overlooked by Indian antiquarians. The place in questiont is Evang. Joan., Homil. I. cap. 1, and runs as follows:
Up to the present time the means for an accurate chronology. of Indian Antiquity are entirely wanting, and in judging of the age of the literary monuments we can only speak of relative dates. Our aim here then must be to establish that the Bhagavad-Gita may be attributed to a period in which it is not impossible that its composer may have been acquainted with Christianity and its sacred writings, that is to say, with different books of the New
Testament.
"The Syrians, too, and Egyptians, and Indians, and Persians, and Ethiopians, and innumerable other nations, translating into their own tongues the doctrines derived from this man, barbarians though they were, learnt to philosophise."
The date after which it could not have been composed must, however, be left an open question till we are certain when Sankara,
Die Bhagavad Gita uebersetzt und erläutert von Dr. F. Lorinser (Breslau, 1869).
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† ̓Αλλὰ καὶ Σύροι, καὶ Αἰγύπτιοι, καὶ Ἰνδοὶ, καί Πέρσαι, καὶ Αἰθίοπες, καὶ μυρία ἕτερα ἔθνη, εἰς τὴν αὐτῶν
Múza' Bhostán, Múza' Aisapúr, Srol. Múza Bhopan. Múza' Pangári Khard, Múza' Bhuraviti. Múza' Mundrar, Múza' Chivili. Superintendent Kámel Khán built the mosk of Má Çáheb.
We might be tempted to regard the importance μεταβαλώντες γλῶτταν τὰ παρὰ τούτου δόγματα εἰσαχθέντα, ἔμαθος ἄνθρωποι βάρβαροι φιλοσοφεῖν.-(Ed. Montfaucon, tom. viii. pp. 11, 12.).