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GARBE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BHAGAVADGITI
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Christianity, is to be conceded; however, I do not think that any one has sueceeded in rais-/ ing this possibility into probability or into certainty. To me personally, there is no idea to be met with in the Gitá that could not be explained satisfactorily on the basis of the vast treasure of thought, or on that of the proper spiritual inheritance of the Indian people. In this question, I hold myself at a standpoint quite the opposite of F. Lorinser, who in the preface, notes, [p. 56] and appendix to his metrical translation of the Bhag. (Breslau, 1869) asserts his conviction with an earnestness and zeal, which might win esteem even from an opponent, that "not only did the author of the Bhag. know and probably utilise the writings of the New Testament, but also generally did weave into his system Christian ideas and views” (page v). Lorinser would even prove from which parts of the New Testament a larger number of "sentences are borrowed," and from which a lesser number of them; that the "epistles of St. Paul in their entirety, with the exception of the Thessalonians and the Philemon have been utilised” (p. 285). In this strain does he proceed. Lorinser was certainly a good theologian, In this case, however, he trod into a province with which he was not sufficiently familiar. That the Indian words appear in his writings very often in a false orthography and with false articles, is not purely an accident, but a symptom of the fact that he was not equipped with the requisite philological knowledge with which to judge of things Indian. Had Lorinser been more closely familiar with the history of the development of Indian thought, he would not have drawn so very emphatic conclusions from the resemblances" collected together by him. These resemblances are for the most part entirely of a vague nature. They relate to likeness in thought and expression, which however finds its explanation in the similarity of the back-ground (lit. characteristics) of the New Testament of the Bhag. Even Weber who was inclined to concede to the Christian influence in India a wide field to range over, says Ind. Liter. Gescha, p. 367 (=English Trans. p. 238, Note 252a) that Lorinser has estimated much too highly the bearing of his argument, and that the question whether to postulate or not any acquaintance of the Bhag. with the tenets of Christianity is still sub judice. Besides, Lorinser's theory has been refuted by such reputed sound scholars as E. Windisch, John Muir Max Müller, C. P. Tiele and Telang, with such conclusiveness, [p. 57] that I need not refute it in detail any more. 49
PART IV.
The Age of the Bhagavadgita. Among those works which have contributed most to the understanding of the Bhag., ranke, without doubt,' K. T. Telang's English Translation of the poem 50 in the Sacred Books of the East, Vol. VIII, Oxford 1882. Telang's attempt, however, to prove for the Bhag. a high antiquity,--an antiquity higher than Åpastamba's Dharmasútrahas rightly found no countenance amongst the European Indologists. In the preface to his translation, p. 34, Telang, after an extensive argumentation, comes to the conclusion that the Gitâ must be, in any case, older than the third century B.C., though we cannot say how much. Since we now know through Bühler's investigations that the
• Comparo A. Holtzman, Das Mahabharata und Seine Teile, part II, p. 162.
50 The second edition of the work of 1898 though not much different (from the firsu edition) is infortunately not accessible to me.
