Indian Antiquary Vol 59

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 62

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
( MARCH, 1930
would be able to controvert the argumentation of Professor Edgerton-there can, of course, be no talk whatsoever about separating the tenets of different philosophical systems within the Gitā-simply because there are none. 26 And in such case we need not further trouble ourselves with the ingenious but impossible theories of Garbe.
Other scholars go to the opposite extreme and find in the Bhagavadgită a work of complete and insoluble unity. For instance, Professor Oltramare, in a lecture presented to the 17th Congress of Orientalists at Oxford, which has since been printed, considers that the whole of the Gītā, as we have it now, belonged to the original Mahābhārata, and that this text is a uniform whole and without any internal discrepancies. A young Sanskritist, M. Étienne Lamotte, whose name we meet with for the first time in a recently published work, 38 holds much the same opinion, and we come to know through him that other renowned scholars, like MM. de la Vallée Poussin and Formichi, are also convinced of the original unity of the Gitā. With all due respect to these prominent authorities we would fain suggest that if the unity of the poem can possibly be maintained on purely philosophical grounds, it cannot be upheld because of the manifold other difficulties that would ensue from such a theory. The opinions of these scholars are the reverse of those of Garbe; but in reality they are just as unacceptable.
We shall, however, now make an end with this rapid survey of former opinions and put forth in the following our own modest suggestions.
Some twenty years ago Professor F. 0. Schrader published a short but important paragraph 29 on what he called the 'old' Bhagavadgitā. In this passage he gave it as his opinion that the original Gitā, which belonged to a pre-Vaignavite Mahābhārata,' came to an end with the verse ži, 38, of the present text. To this oldest Gitā there might, however, possibly have been added a few more Slokas of the same tenor ere the Bhagavatas fixed upon it and made it the introduction to the present text.
Several years later Professor Jacobi in a short paper30 arrived at results which are not very unlike the conclusion of Professor Schrader. Jacobi regards canto i of the present Gītā as belonging to the original epic text; and out of canto ii he selected verses 1–,9-12, 18, 25-27 and 30-37, to which he has finally added xviii, 73, as a fitting conclusion to the whole. He emphasizes, however, that this reconstruction is only a tentative one.
In a similar way Oldenberg31 wanted to reconstruct the oldest part of the Gitā. According to him it should have consisted of canto i and canto ii, vv. 1-38. Still he admits the possibility of vv.26-27 and 38 being later additions.
(To be continued.)
26 Professor Edgerton's conclusions should not be contested because sámkhya and yoga are mentioned in the Kauțiliya. First of all that work does not with certainty belong to the fourth century B.C. ; and then the translation of the words samkhyam yogo loloyatam cety anpikpiki, which have been badly misinterpreted, has been put right by Professor Winternitz (Indologica Pragensia, i, 2 f.)
37 Op. Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, vol. xovii, p. 161 1.) 38 Notes sur la Bhagavadona (Société Belge d'Etudes Orientales), Paris, 1929." 29 Cp. ZDMG., lxiv (1910), p. 339 f. 30 ZDMG., lxxii (1918), p. 323 f.
81 Cp. Nachrichten d. Ges. d. Wiss. Goettingen, phil.-hist. Klasse, 1919, p. 332 f. Oldenberg, Lc., p. 334, n. 1, quito corroztly criticises the very formal way in which Professor Jacobi has tried to explain the words anaryajuam asvanyyam alirttikaram in ii, 2.