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GARBE'S APPENDIX TO THE BHAGAVADGITA
IX. 16-19-A pantheistic interpolation in the midst of a description of the different kinds of the worshippers of God.
IX. 29 To be recognised as an interpolation because of its Vedantic character and because of the contradictions which the first line presents to other passages of the Bhagavadgitå. Böhtlingk remarks on this verse: "Krishna says here that he acts evenly with every one and that no one is odious or agreeable to him. How is this to agree with XII. 14 (better 13) and ff. 1"-and we might addwith V. 29 VII. 17, XVIII. 64, 65, 69? All these passages in which Krishna either styles himself as the friend of all beings, or speaks of those persons who are dear to him, belong to the original Gud, since they are not tinged with Vedantic complexion.
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X. 12-42-An elaborate exposition from the Vedantic standpoint, at length degenerating into insipid details of a previous subject. An imitation of X. 20-39 is to be found in the ffvaragta, Karmapurana II. 7, 3-17: the text in the Bhagavadgitâ, however, has quite a Puranic character.
One might suspect whether the first verse of the eleventh Adhyaya might not also belong to this large interpolation. It is curious that Arjuna should at this place say (when there are eight more Adhyayas still to follow) that his perplexities had disappeared as a result of Krishna's instructions. At the end of the poem XVIII. 72 Krisha for the first time naturally asks Arjuna how it (his advice) affected him in general: and Arjuna's statement (v. 73) has its proper sense and justification there. I shall not however attach too much importance to any such want of consideration in the poem.
XI. 7, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19-Pantheistic interpolations. When it is said in these verses that the divine person of Krishna contains in it, the whole world and the gods and all beings and all things beside, and that this body is without beginning, without centre (lit. middle part) and without end, the whole stands in flagrant contrast with what follows; since in vv. 20-23 the worlds and all supernatural beings look at Krishna with astonishment and wonder, and this cannot be said of them, if they were contained in him; and in v. 32 Krishna says that he was about to do what an omnipresent being, pervading the whole universe, could not have said of himself.
XI. 37-40-Vedantic interpolation.
XIII. 2-Vedantic interpolation. Krishna styles himself here as the knower of the field in all the fields (as the soul in all the bodies); how could he then still hold in prospect in v. 3 any instruction regarding him who is the knower of the field?
XIII. 4-An interpolated verse, since the appeal to the Upanishads and to the Brahmasutra (and therefore to the Vedantic sources) scarcely fits in, the principle of life in the sequel being described according to the theory of Samkhya-yoya.
XIII. 12-18, 27, 28, 30-33-Vedantic interpolations. Verse 27 appears to be fashioned in a Vedantic sense after the pattern of v. 29. With regard to v. 31, it is doubtful whether it is to be expunged along with its neighbours. If the verse however might have belonged to the original poem, paramatman ought to stand here quite in the sense of atman as in VI. 7 and XIII. 22.
XIV. 26, 27-Vedantic appendage. The question asked in v. 21 is answered by vv. 22-25,
XV. 12-15 An interpolation that disturbs the connection, and is based on the standpoint of Vedanta and Brahmanic theology.
XVII. 23-28-An appendage regarding the use of the expressions om, tat, sat and asat, with a Vedantic starting-point. The whole theory is here and in the Bhagavadgità generally as little used as possible externally also this passage proves itself as being subsequently interpolated, since the Enumeration, based on the disposition previously mentioned in v. 7, comes to an end with v. 22.
XVIII. 45, 46-nterpolated verses because of the Vedantic expression Yena sarvam idam tatam in v. 46. V. 45 stands in close connection with v. 46.
XVIII. 50-54-Vedantic interpolation. When in these verses it has been mentioned as to how the perfected one goes to Brahman, we might ask as to why he should be admitted in v. 55 into union with Krishna, the personal God. Verse 54 forms a transition to the intercepted text of the original poem though in a clumsy manner, since one that has become Brahman has no more any occasion to compass the highest devotion to Krishna.
XVIII. 74-78-Samajaya's concluding remarks, appended, for reason of the (poem's) insertion in the
Mahabharata.
