Indian Antiquary Vol 47

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 351

GARBE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BHAGAVADGITÁ.* TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY N. B. UTGIKAR, M.A.; POONA.
Preface.
[Text p. 5] Or tranlations of Bhag, and of treatises over it, there is certainly no lack.1 A new translation and investigation of the famous poem is not however superfluous, since Böhtlingk in his " Bemerkungen zur Bhag." has shown how much yet remains to be done for an exact understanding of the text of the Bhag. Böhtlingk's remarks conclude with the words:" An unprejudiced examination of the philosophical contents of the Bhag. influenced by no commentator is certainly very much to be wished for, if coming from a scholar familiar with the philosophical systems of India." If the great scholar-only recently snatched away from us-be right in holding this view, and if I might reckon myself on the ground of my work for the Indian Philosophy-as amongst those qualified for such a work, I need have no scruples in putting forward the result of (my) all-sided and searching investigation of the Bhaq.
I. The Bhagavadgita in its Original Form.
[Text p. 6] The days when the Bhag. because of the loftiness of its thought and of its language excited in Europe nothing short of enthusiastic rapture, are long gone by, We are-in spite of phantastic theosophists like Franz Hartmann-grown more sober and more critical, and do not any more shut our eyes to the manifest shortcomings and weak points of the poem. Even now the still prevai ing view in India is of the homogeneity of the Bhag., though this view has been often enough refuted by German scholars. Already in 1326 had W. von Humboldt in his well-known essay "On an Episode of the Mahabharata known under the name of Bhag.," p. 53, said: "The interpolations and additions can with great probability be conjectured even if one be not in the position to single them out ;" and again p. 54," the relationship of the individual doctrines would probably have been stronger if indeed the idea of unity had prevailed from the very first design of the work." With greater decisiveness has Weber after him [Ind. Stu. II, 394 (1853)] expressed himself on this point:-"The Bhag. can be regarded only as a combination of partly very different kinds of pieces." A. Holtzmann, Das Mahâb., II., pp. 163-165, emphasises the necessity of the supposition that the Bhag. might have been recast; so also E. W. Hopkins in his Great Epic of India, 1902, speaks more than once (p. 205, p. 234) of the rewritten Gitâ (rewritten by a modernizing hand). In what way Hopkins thinks that the Gîtâ might have been rewrittten is to be seen from his older work The
[Garbe's (German) Introduction to his (German) Translation of Bhagavadgità appeared at Leipzig
in 1905.]
1 A comprehensive review of the MSS., editions and translations of the Bhag. and of its native commentaries and of the explanatory treatises thereof by European scholars is given by A Holtzmann, Das Mahabharata, II. 1893, pp. 121-153. Since the appearance of Holtzmann's work no year has passed but has added in India further contributions to the literature on the Bhag.
* Berichte der phil-hist Klasse der Königh. Sächs. Gesell. der Wissen. sitzung Vom 6 Febr. 1897.
a Protâp Chandra Roy says in his translation of the Mahabharata, VI. 75, note: "The text of the Gild has come down to us without, it may be ventured to be stated, any interpolation."