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BHAGAVADGITA.
may have existed as such a dialogue before the Mahabharata, and may have been appropriated by the author of the Mahabharata to his own purposcs'. But yet, upon the wholc, having regard to the fact that those ideas of unity on which Mr. Wheeler and others set so much store are scarcely appropriate to our old literature; to the fact that the Gitâ fits pretty well into the setting given to it in the Bhishma Parvan; to the fact that the feeling of Arguna, which gives occasion to it, is not at all inconsistent, but is most consonant, with poctical justicc; to the fact that there is not in the Gitâ, in my judgment, any trace of a sectarian or 'Brahmanizing' spirit, such as Mr. Wheeler and also the late Professor Goldstücker' hold to have animated the arrangers of the Mahâbhârata ; having regard, I say, to all these facts, I am prepared to adhere, I will not say without diffidence, to the theory of the genuineness of the Bhagavadgitâ as a portion of the original Mahabharata.
The next point to consider is as to the authorship of the Gità. The popular notion on this subject is pretty well known. The whole of the Mahabharata is, by our traditions, attributed to Vyasa, whom we have already noticed as a relative of the Kauravas and Pandavas; and therefore the Bhagavadgitâ, also, is naturally affiliated to the same author. The carliest written testimony to this authorship, that I can trace, is to be found in Sankara karya's commentary on the Gita • itself and on the Brihadaranyakopani. shado. To a certain extent, the mention of Vyasa in the body of the Gitâ would, from a historic standpoint, scem to inilitate against this tradition. But I have not seen in any of the commentaries to which I have had access, any consideration of this point, as there is of the mention in some
Sec to this effect M. Fauriel, quoted in Grote's Greece. II, 195, Cabinet ed.)
Compare also Wckver's History of Indian Literature English translation, p. 187. I be instruction, however, as to 'the reverence due to the priesthood' from the military caste,' which is there spoken of, appears to me to be entirely abrent from the Gia; see p. 31 seq. intra.
· Westminster Review, April 1808, p. 388 seq.; and Romains, I, 104, 105. • P. 6 Calcutta ed., Samvat, 1937). .P. 841 (Bibl. Indic. ed. ; alsu Sietasvatara, p. 278.
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