Indian Antiquary Vol 47

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

Page 352

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
Religions of India, p. 389, [Text p. 7) where it is said: “This Divine Song (or Song of the Blessed One) is at present a Krishnaite version of an older Vishnuite poem and this in turn was at first an unsectarian work, perhaps a late Upanishad.” Again at p. 399, Hopkins says: “It is noticeable that although Krishna (Vishnu) is the ostensible speaker, there is scarcely anything to indicate that the poem was originally composed even for Vishņu." As would be evident from what follows, I do not share this view of the American scholar. The conviction, however, that the Bhag. has not reached us in its original form but has undergone essential transformations, is now, however, shared by most of the Indologists outside India. Still this conviction has not upto now led any one to separating the later parts of the Bhag. And this for conceivable reasons-since any such attempt exposes the critique quite too much to objections and contradictions. Because of the importance which the Bhag., however, possesses for the Indian spiritual life, it appears to me to be in the religio-historical interests of the present) moment, that such a task should be ventured. The translation that I offer in the sequel will neither be polished nor smooth, but will be quite literal, and will contain therefore in smaller type those parts, which according to my view are interpolated by a later hand. In this I have proceeded on the following considerations.
A. Holtzmann (op. cit., pp. 163, 164) is on account of the inconsistencies in the Bhag. led to the conclusion that “ We have before us a Vishnuite revision of a pantheistio poem. We must distinguish between an older and a later Bhag. The older poem was a philosophico-poetical episode of the old genuine Mahabharata, being composed with a pantheistic tendency." (Text p. 8] When I read this statement the conviction grew strongly on me that the fact was just the opposite of this. Just before the passage quoted above, Holtzmann correctly shows how the theological idea of the poem must be regarded as a contradiction with itself. “On the one hand, the pantheistic and thoroughly impersonal World-Soul, on the other, the extremely personal and realistic Krishna-Vishnu, incorporated as a human being, and we are called upon to believe that these two principles are identical." Because of this contradiction the investigation must, as a matter of fact, proceed to distinguish the later component parts of the Gita from the older ones; but in my opinion the investigation should not be carried on after Holtzmann's fashion.
The whole character of the poem in its design and execution is preponderatingly theistic. A personal God Krishna stands forth in the form of a human hero, expounds his doctrine, enjoins, above all things, on his listener, along with the performance of his duties, loving faith in Him and self-surrender; and then discloses Himself as an act of especial grace in His super-mundane but withal personal form, and promises to the faithful as a reward for his faith, that he would be united with Him after his death, and would be admitted into the fellowship of God. And by the side of this God-(who is) delineated as personally as possible, and who dominates the whole poem-stands out frequently the impersonal neutral Brahman, the Absolute, as the highest principle. At one time Krishna says that He is the sole Highest God who has created the world and all beings and rules over it all ; at another
Of interpolations and changes (made) in the Bhag. Hopkins treats, Religions of India, 390 and 429 (top).