Studies in the Epics and Puranas c13.s2.2

c13.s2.2

F. Otto Schrader first brought to light the Kashmirian recension of the Bhg,²³³ which he maintains to be intrinsically superior to the Śaṃkara text, with its two commentaries dating from the tenth century. The Kashmiri-an recension differs from the vulgate text of the *Bhg* not only in giving "fourteen complete and four half stanzas" not found in the current version, but also in presenting over 250 variant readings. Schrader also contributed papers on the subject, showing that the India Office MS of the *Mbh*, though from Kashmir, no doubt, contained the vulgate text of the *Bhg*, but was not free from traces of Kashmiri-an recension; that Rāma-kaṇṭha and Abhinavagupta were ignorant of the vulgate text; and that Śaṃkara's works and the vulgate *Bhg* came to Kashmir after the eleventh century during the reign of the Kashmiri-an king Harṣa.²³⁴ He also points to a *Bhg* "riddle" which requires the assumption of the existence of a form of the *Bhg*, wherein Arjuna spoke only 57 (instead of 84) stanzas, and hence 27 of the present Arjuna stanzas are proposed to be excluded as later additions.²³⁵