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38, 39: vedam ekayanam nama vedandm Sirasi sthitam tad-arthakam panca-ratram moksa-dam tat-kriyavatam yasminn eko moksa-margo vede proktah sandianah mad-aradhana-riipena tasmad ekayanam bhavet. See also the article “The Pafica-ratras or Bhagavata-sastra,”’ by Govindacarya Svamin, F.R.A.S. 1911. ° That the ekdntin faith is the same as the Satvata or the Pafica-ratra faith is evident from the following quotation from the Pdadma-tantra, 1v. 2. 88: sitris suhrd bhagavatas sdtvatah patica-kdla-vit ekantikas tan-mayas ca paiica-ratrika ity api. This faith is also called eka@vana, or the path of the One, as is seen from the following passage from the Jsvara-samhita, 1. 18: moksayanaya vai pantha etad-anyo na vidyate tasmad ekayanam nama pravadanti manisinah. XIV] Bhdgavata and the Bhagavad-gita 549 no mention of the vyahas or personified forms, is much earlier than those of the inscriptions, the Niddesa and Patafijali, i.e. it was composed not later than the beginning of the fourth century before the Christian era; how much earlier it is difficult to say. At the time when the Gita was conceived and composed the identification of Vasudeva with Narayana had not yet taken place, nor had the fact of his being an incarnation of Visnu come to be acknowledged, as appears from the work itself.... Visnu is alluded to as the chief of the Adityas and not as the supreme being, and Vasudeva was Visnu in this sense, as mentioned in chapter x, because the best thing of a group or class is represented to be his wibhati or special mani- festation!.” The date of the Gita has been the subject of long discussions among scholars, and it is inconvenient for our present purposes to enter into an elaborate controversy. One of the most extreme views on the subject is that of Dr Lorinser, who holds that it was composed after Buddha, and several centuries after the com- mencement of the Christian era, under the influence of the New Testament. Mr Telang in the introduction to his translation of the Bhagavad-gita points out—as has been shown above—that the Bhagavad-gita does not know anything that is peculiarly Buddhistic. Attempt has also been made to prove that the Gita not only does not know anything Buddhistic, but that it also knows neither the accepted Samkhya philosophy nor the Yoga of Patafijali’s Yoga-siitra. This, together with some other secondary considerations noted above, such as the non-identification of Vasu- deva with Narayana and the non-appearance of the vyaha doctrine, seems to be a very strong reason for holding the Gita to be in its general structure pre-Buddhistic. The looseness of its com- position, however, always made it easy to interpolate occasional verses. Since there is no other consideration which might lead us to think that the Gita was written after the Brahma-sittras, the verse Brahma-siitra-padats caiva hetumadbhir viniscitath has to be either treated as an interpolation or interpreted differently. Sankara also thought that the Brahma-sitra referred to the Gita as an old sacred writing (smrtz), and this tallies with our other considerations regarding the antiquity of the Gita. The view of Dr Lorinser, that the Bhagavad-gita must have borrowed at least some of its ‘materials from Christianity, has been pretty successfully refuted by 1 Vaisnavism and Saivism, p. 13. 550 The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-gita [cH. Mr Telang in the introduction to his translation, and it therefore need not be here again combated. Dr Ray Chaudhury also has discussed the problem of the relation of Bhagavatism to Chris- tianity, and in the discussion nothing has come out which can definitely make it seem probable that the Bhagavata cult was indebted to Christianity at any stage of its development; the possibility of the Gita being indebted to Christianity may be held to be a mere fancy. It is not necessary here to enter into any long discussion in refuting Garbe’s view that the Gita was originally a work on Samkhya lines (written in the first half of the second century B.c.), which was revised on Vedantic lines and brought to its present form in the second century a.D.; for I suppose it has been amply proved that, in the light of the uncontradicted tradition of the Maha-bharata and the Pajica-ratra literature, the Gita is to be regarded as a work of the Bhagavata school, and an internal analysis of the work also shows that the Gita is neither an ordinary Samkhya nor a Vedanta work, but represents some older system wherein the views of an earlier school of Samkhya are mixed up with Vedantic ideas different from the Vedanta as interpreted by Sankara. The arbitrary and dogmatic assertion of Garbe, that he could clearly separate the original part of the Gita from the later additions, need not, to my mind, be taken seriously. The antiquity of the Bhagavata religion is, aS pointed out by Tilak, acknowledged by Senart (The Indian Interpreter, October 1909 and January 1910) and Bihler (Indian Antiquary, 1894), and the latter says, ‘‘The ancient Bhagavata, Satvata or Panca-ratra sect, devoted to the worship of Narayana and his deified teacher Krsna Devaki-putra, dates from a period long anterior to the rise of the Jainas in the eighth century B.c.”” And assuredly the Gitd is the earliest available literature of this school. As regards external evidence, it may be pointed out that the Gita is alluded to not only by Kalidasa and Bana, but also by Bhasa in his play Karna-bhara'. Tilak also refers to an article by T. G. Kale in the Vedic Magazine, vil. pp..528-532, where he points out that the Bodhayana-Grhya-sesa-siitra, 11. 22. 9, quotes the Gita, 1x. 26, 1 Tilak quotes this passage on page 574 of his Bhagavad-gita-rahasya (Bengali translation of his Marathi work) as follows: hato ’pi labhate svargam jitva tu labhate yasah _ ubhe bahumate loke nasti nisphalata rane, which repeats the first two lines of the Gitd, 11.37. 7 XIV] Bhagavata and the Bhagavad-gita 551 and the Bodhayana-Pitr-medha-sitra, at the beginning of the third prasna, quotes another passage of the Gita!. Incidentally it may also be mentioned that the style of the Gita is very archaic; it is itself called an Upanisad, and there are many passages in it which are found in the Isa (Isa, 5, cf. the Bhagavad-gita, xi11. 15 and vi. 29), Mundaka (Mund. 11. 1. 2, cf. the Gita, x11. 15), Kathaka (Il. 15, 1. 18 and 19 and 1. 7, cf. the Gita, vill. 11; 11. 20 and 29) and other Upanisads. We are thus led to assign to the Gita a very early date, and, since there is no definite evidence to show that it was post-Buddhistic, and since also the Gita does not contain the slightest reference to anything Buddhistic, I venture to suggest that it is pre-Buddhistic, however unfashion- able such a view may appear. An examination of the Gita from the point of view of language also shows that it is archaic and largely un-Paninean. Thus from the root yudh we have yudhya (vi. 7) for yudhyasva; yat, which is &tmane-pada in Paninean Sanskrit, is used in parasmai-pada also, as in VI. 36, VII. 3, IX. 14 and XV. 11; ram is also used in parasmat-pada in x.g. The roots Ranks, vraj, vis and iig are used in Paninean Sanskrit in parasmat-pada, but in the Gita they are all used in atmane-pada as well—kanks in I. 31, Ura] in Il. 54, vis iN XXIII. §5 and zig in VI. 19 and XIV. 23. Again, the verb ud-vi, which is generally used in a&tmane-pada, is used in parasmai-pada in Vv. 20; nivasisyasi is used in xu. 8 for nivatsyasi, ma sucah for ma Socih in xvi. 5; and the usage of prasavisyadhvam in Ill. 10 is quite ungrammatical. So yamah samyamatam in X. 29 should be yamah samyacchatam, he sakheti in XI. 41 is an instance of wrong sandht, priyayarhasi in XI. 44 is used for priyayah arhasi, senaninam in X. 24 is used for senanyam?. These linguistic irregularities, though they may not themselves be regarded as determining anything definitely, may yet be regarded 1 Bodhayana-Grhya-Ssesa-siitra: tad aha bhagavan, patram puspam phalam toyam yo me bhaktya prayacchati tad aham bhakty-upahrtam asndmi prayatatmanah. Also Bodhayana-Pitr-medha-sitra: yatasya vai manusyasya dhruvam maranam iti viganiyat tasmdj jate na prahrsyen mrte ca na visideta. Compare the Gitd, jatasya hi dhruvo mrtyuh, etc. N.B. These references are all taken from Tilak’s Bhagavad-gitda-rahasya Ppp. 574, etc. : ; ; 2 2 For enumeration of more errors of this character see Mr V. K. Rajwade’s article in the Bhandarkar commemoration volume, from which these have been collected. 552 The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-gita —_[cH. xIv as contributory evidence in favour of the high antiquity of the Gita. The Gita may have been a work of the Bhagavata school written long before the composition of the Maha-bharata, and may have been written on the basis of the Bharata legend, on which the Maha-bharata was based. It is not improbable that the Gita, which summarized the older teachings of the Bhagavata school, was incorporated into the Maha-bharata, during one of its revisions, by reason of the sacredness that it had attained at the time. INDEX} abadhita, 108 abadhita - svayam - prakdsataiva asya satta, 36 Abdomen, 289, 353 abhaya, 510 abhava, 142, 162, 193, 227 abheda, 207 abhedo nila-tad-dhiyoh, 26 n. abhicara-karma, 284 Abhidharma-kosa, 58 n. Abhidharma-kosa-vyakhya, 58 n., 62 n. abhidhanabhidheya - jana -jfeyadilak - sanah, 3 n. abhighata, 339, 410 abhihitanvaya-vada, 227 abhilaso, 497 abhildsa, 412 Abhinanda, 232 Abhinavagupta, 49, 443 Abhinavanarayana, 78 Abhinavanarayanendra Sarasvati, 78, 79 abhinivesa, 414 abhiprapacyamdana, 314 Abhipraya-prakasika, 83, 87 n., 148 n. abhisecana, 505 abhivyajyate, 303 abhivyaktt, 173 abhraja, 300, 301, 331 7.