Materials for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect c9.124

c9.124

“Rightly do the wise call thee Viṣṇu in the shape of a mountain,” we have an unmistakable reference to the *Gītā* x, 25 (*asmi sthāvarāṇām Himālayaḥ*) both in form and in sense. The extant *Brahmasūtras*, when they refer to *Smṛiti*, refer clearly to passages taken from the *Bhagavadgītā* also. Under *Sūtra*, i, 2, 6, Śaṅkara quotes *Gītā* xviii, 61. Under *Sūtra* ii, 3, 45 all the famous commentators (Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja and Madhva) cite *Gītā*, xv, 7. Again under iv, 2, 22 all these commentators refer to the same passage—that at the close of the *Gītā*, Chap. viii.² But as the *Gītā* cetainly appeals to the *Brahmasūtras*³ this reciprocal quotation according to some scholars might be accounted for by their being contemporaneous.⁴ The *Chārudatta* attributed to Bhāsa, a predecessor of Kālidāsa, seems to allude to the *Brahmasūtras*.⁵ In his introduction to the sacred laws of Āpastamba Dr. Bühler observes⁶ “he (Āpastamba) knew not only the unsystematic speculations contained in the *Upanishads* and *Āraṇyakas*, but a well-defined system of Vedāntic philosophy identical with that of Badarāyaṇa's *Brahmasūtras*." The same writer says that "on linguistic grounds Āpastamba cannot be placed later than the third century B.C."'¹ If the views of Max Müller and Bühler are accepted then the *Brahmasūtras* as well as the *Bhagavadgītā* must have existed at least as early as the third century B.C. From the absence of any allusion to the *Vyūha* doctrine in the *Gītā* Sir R. G. Bhandarkar concludes that it was earlier than the Ghosuṇḍī and Nānāghāṭ inscriptions and the *Mahābhāshya* of Patañjali (second century B.C.) all of which show acquaintance with the *Vyūhavāda*. Garbe thinks that the mention in the *Gītā* of the word Himālaya, the modern form of the older Himavat, makes an impression of relative lateness. It should however be remembered that Simalia, the ancient Babylonian queen of the snow mountains, can hardly be dissociated from the name Himālaya,² though it must be conceded that the occurrence of the word Himālaya in Sanskrit literature is comparatively late. An important thing to remember is that the *Gītā* is one of the older poems of an epic which was virtually completed before the beginning of active intercourse with Rome (first century B.C.), for while the Yavanas and Pahlavas are mentioned very often, the Romakas are mentioned but once and we have no reference to the *Denarius* until we come to the supplementary book styled the *Harivamśa*. Hill rightly points out that the *Gītā* was written at a time when the idea of Vāsudeva as supreme was far from meeting with that tolerant acceptance among the orthodox which it afterwards won.¹