The Bhagavadgîtâ, with the Sanatsugâtîya and the Anugîtâ — SBE Vol. 8 (trans. K. T. Telang, 1882)

INTRODUCTION. 2II Lie RSR RU. ES OS be said to have their ages fixed with even any approach to accuracy. And in the case of the Sâñkhya-sûtras, there is the further difficulty presented by the circumstance, that there is room for very serious doubts as to whether the current Sûtras are really of the authorship of Kapila, or whoever else was the original founder of the system. With regard to the Yoga, one or two observations from a different point of view may not, however, be entirely out of place. At p.248 the Yoga SAstra is referred to eo nomine. What Sâstra is here alluded to? Is it Patañgali’s, or some other Sastra dealing with similar topics? Or, again, is it an entirely different matter that is alluded to, and are we not to see in the expression in question an allusion to any system formally propounded? I own, as stated in the note on the passage, that my mind inclines to the last view. There is not very much to say on either side of the question, as far as I am able to understand it. But the view I incline to appears to have one small circumstance in its favour. At p- 249 we have an allusion to persons who understand the Yoga, and to a certain illustration propounded by them. Now who are these persons? My limited knowledge of Yoga literature has not enabled me to trace the illustration anywhere else than in the Kaṭhopanishad, and in the Sanatsugatiya. It seems to mevery unlikely, that the illustration can have been put forward in any work older than the Kathopanishad. And we may, I think, assume it as most probable that the Sanatsugâtiya borrowed it from that work. If so, it is not likely that the Anugîtâ can have referred to any other master of the Yoga than the author of the Kaṭhopanishad. And then it would seem to follow, that the Anugita must have been composed at a time when, although the Upanishads were looked on with reverence and as works of authority, they were not yet regarded as part and parcel of the Vedic revelation’. It is impossible not to perceive, that the train of reasoning here is at every stage hedged round with difficulties and doubts. And the inference therefore to which we are led by it must be accepted with proportionate caution. But if the reasoning is correct, it seems to be certain, that the Anugita belongs to some period prior to the second, and probable, that it belongs to some period prior to the third century, before Christ. For in the second century before Christ was composed the Mahabhashya of Patañgali, in which Rahasyas—which is another name for Upanishads—are mentioned as forming part of the Vedic literature. And in Apastamba’s Dharma-sûtras, which are older than Patañgali, Upanishads* are mentioned in the same way. Iam aware that it may be said, that because Upanishads as a class of works are mentioned by Patañgali and Apastamba, it does not follow that any particular Upanishad, such as the Kadzfa, for instance, also existed at that time. This is quite true. But without going now into the general question, it is sufficient to point out, that our argument here is concerned merely with the recognition of the Upanishads as a class of works forming part of the Vedic canon. Such recognition must have come later than the period at which the Anugita could speak of a passage in the Kaṭha-upanishad as the utterance of Yogavids, or persons who understood the Yoga.

1 This seems to be also the implication of the passage at p. 309, where the rules for final emancipation are alluded to.