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

I think, we have pretty satisfactory evidence to show that the middle of the fifth century A.C. is the very latest date to which he can be referred. Ina small tract (written by me in 1873), discussing Professor Weber’s theory about the Râmâyaṇa, I have pointed out! that the Pañkatantra quotes from Kalidasa a passage which there is good reason to believe formed part of the Pañkatantra when it was translated for king Nushirvan of Persia about the beginning of the sixth century A.C.? Allowing for the time required to raise Kâlidâsa to the position of being cited as an authority, and for the time required for the spread of the fame of an Indian work to Persia in those early days, I think, that the middle of the fifth century is a date to which Kâlidâsa cannot well have been subsequent. Now in the works of Kalidasa we have some very remarkable allusions to the Bhagavadgita. It is not necessary to go through all these allusions. I will only mention the most remarkable, one from the Raghuvamsa, and one from the Kumârasambhava. In Raghu, canto X, stanza 67, the gods addressing Vishṇu say : ‘There is nothing for you to acquire which has not been acquired. The one motive in your birth and work is the good of the worlds” The first sentence here reminds one at once of Gita, chapter III, stanza 22, the coincidence with which in sense as well as expression is very striking. The second sentence contains the words ‘birth and work, the precise words employed at Gita IV, 9; and the idea of ‘good of the worlds’ is identical with the idea expressed in Gita III, 20-24, the words only in which it is clothed being different. Couple this passage with the one from Kumarasambhava, canto VI, 67, where the seven Rishis say to the Himalaya mountain, ‘Well hast thou been called Vishnu in a firmly-fixed form.’ The allusion there to the Gita, chapter X, stanza 25 (p. 89), is, I venture to think, unmistakable. The word ‘firmly-fixed’ is identical in both passages; the idea is identical, and Mallinatha refers to the passage in the Gita as the authority which Kâlidâsa had in view. It follows, therefore, that the Gita must be prior to Kâlidâsa’s time. It may be added, that Kâlidâsa in his Raghu XV, 67, cites Manu as an authority for the proposition that a king must protect all castes and all orders or âsramas. Manu, therefore, must have lived considerably earlier than Käâlidâsa, and the Gita, as we have already argued, must be considerably earlier, not only than Manu, but also than his predecessor Apastamba. The Gita may, therefore, be safely said to belong to a period several centuries prior to the fifth century A.C.

1 «Was the Râmâyaṇa copied from Homer?’ See pp. 36-59.

2 Cf. Colebrooke’s Essays, vol. ii, p. 166 seq. It may be remarked that this argument is not affected by the attempt to distinguish the Kalidasa of the Sakuntala from the Kâlidâsa of the Raghuvamsa. Because the work cited in the Pañkatantra is the Kumârasambhava, which indisputably belongs to the same author as the Raghuvamsa.