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INTRODUCTION.
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Gita being substituted for Brahma Gita. At the close of the thirty-fifth chapter, there is another alteration caused by the substitution of Gurusishyasamvada for Brahmana Gita; and this continues down to the fifty-first chapter, where the thread of the narrative is again taken up the philosophical parenthesis, if I may so say, having come to an end. With the fifty-first chapter our present translation also ends. Now it appears from the above comparison, that the list of contents set out above is accurate, save in so far as it mentions Vasudevagamana as a distinct section of the Asvamedha Parvan. No such section seems to be in existence. And there appears to be nothing in the Asvamedha Parvan to which that title could be appropriately allotted. The cdition printed at Madras agrees in all essential particulars with the Bombay edition ; with this difference, that even at the close of the twenticth chapter, the name is Brahmara Gita, and not Brahma Gita as it is in the Bombay cdition. The Calcutta edition also agrees in these readings. Turning Dow to a MS. procured for me by my excellent friend Professor Abagi Vishnu Kathavate at Ahmedabad, and bearing date the 15th of Phalguna Vadya 1823, Sunday, we find there at the end of the Asvamedha Parvan a list of contents like that which we have seen in the printed edition. The relevant portion of that list is as follows: 'Samvartamaruttfya, Anugita, Gurusishyasamvada, and Uttankopakhyana.' Here we find aeither the erroneous entry of Vasudevagamana, nor the correct entry of Brahma Gita, which are both contained in the other list. In another MS. which I have now before me, and which has been lent me by Professor Bhandarkar, who purchased it in Puna for the Government of Bombay-in this MS., which contains the commentary of Arguna Misra, the earlier chapters are described not as chapters of the Anugita Parvan, but of the Anugita contained in the Asvamedha Parvan, and they are numbered there as they are numbered in our translation, not continuously with the numbering of the previous chapters of the Asvamedha Parvan. At the close of chapter IV, we have an explicit statement that the Anugita ends there. Then the Brahma Gita begins. And the first chapter is
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