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INTRODUCTION.
201
found in the MS. which he used, or himself established, a separate numbering for the chapters in the several sections of which the Asvamedha Parvan is made up.
Although the information here set out from these various sources is not easily to be harmonised in all its parts, the preponderance of testimony seems to be in favour of regarding the portion of the Asvamedha Parvan embraced in our translation as containing three distinct sections, viz. the Anugita, the Brahmana Gita, and the Gurusishyasamvada. And some indirect support for this conclusion may be derived from one or two other circumstances. In the Sankhya-sara of Vigšana Bhikshu-a work which, as we shall see in the sequel, expressly mentions the Anugita - we have a passage cited as from the Bharata *' which coincides almost precisely with a passage occurring in chapter XXVII of our translation (see p. 335). And in the Bhashya of Saskarakarya on the Bhagavadgitá, chapter XV, stanza 1, we have a citation as from a 'Purana' of a passage which coincides pretty closely with one which occurs in chapter XX of our translation (see p. 313). If the discrepancies between the quotations as given by Vignana Bhikshu and Sankara, and the passages occurring in our text, may be treated merely as various readings-and there is nothing inberently improbable in this being the case-it may be fairly contended, that neither Sankara nor Vigiana Bhikshu would have used the vague expressions, 'a Purana,' or even 'the Bharata,' if they could have correctly substituted in lieu of them the specific name Anugita. And this, it may be said, is a contention of some weight, when it is remembered, that both Sankara and Vigñana show, in other parts of their writings, an acquaintance with this very Anugitá. If this reasoning is correct,
"Lo the beginning of bis gloss on the Anugfrá be mys, that be proposes to caplain dificult passages in the Apagita, &c.- Anugftädisha. And at the otteet of his gloss on the wholc Parvan he says that in the Anagfrá we bave 1 statement of the miscrics of birth, &c. us a protest against worldly life; in the Brahms Ghi we have a recommendation of Prixiyama, &c.; and in the Goru. nabynamnida we bare a cologiom on the perception of the well as distinct from I'mukriti or matare, and incidentally a protest against Prarni ti or activa.
P. 31.
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