methodology of "Quest for the original Gita"

[nagarajpaturi]

1. The idea that the Gita was written not in one day (one single composing event in a certain period) but was written over a period of several centuries through contributions by several persons has been there in the modern discussions on the Gita from a long time.

 

2  What Dr. Khair suggests is in fact that there are huge systematic interpolations by two different persons into the original Gita. Methodology of identifying interpolations in a book belongs to the field of textual criticism. 

 

[V Subrahmanian]

Namaste

I think 'much need not be done about nothing' in the matter of 'one or many authors' of the Bhagavadgītā.  The method of the Vedānta, of which the Gītā is a part, is one of arriving at the 'ekavākyatā.  Even though the Upaniṣads are several, their methods are varied and the Rṣis who are associated with them as draṣṭāraḥ are different, yet the Commentators of these have arrived at, realized, a common thread of message running through the entire upaniṣadic literature.  The variety in the Rṣis, the method, etc. does not deter one from seeing this common message of their being mokṣaśāstra. 

Just as it is so in the upaniṣads, so too, across the prasthānatraya comprising the brahmasūtra-s, the Bhagavadgītā and the Upaniṣads, the Commentators see a common theme of their being a mokṣaśāstra. 

For that matter there is difference of opinion about whether it was one Vyāsa or many who authored all the admitted purāṇas and upa-purāṇas.  Even if it were a fact that there are many authors for the puraṇas and the Bhagavadgita, the fact of their being mokṣaśāstra does not get altered.  In other words, there is nothing in the extant Gitā that is un-vedāntic or that which does not qualify to be an element of mokṣaśāstra.

regards
subrahmanian.v 

On Sat, Oct 11, 2014 at 10:15 AM, nagarajpaturi <nagara...@gmail.com> wrote:

1. The idea that the Gita was written not in one day (one single composing event in a certain period) but was written over a period of several centuries through contributions by several persons has been there in the modern discussions on the Gita from a long time.

 

2  What Dr. Khair suggests is in fact that there are huge systematic interpolations by two different persons into the original Gita. Methodology of identifying interpolations in a book belongs to the field of textual criticism. 

 

--
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[Nagaraj Paturi]

Most of the 21 'problems' listed in the beginning of the work  do not seem to be problems at all. They are usual features of any book.

 

1. Changes in terminology

2. Alternative terminology

 

Is not the use of synonyms quite common?

3. Meaning of the same term differs

 

Is this too not common in books?

 

9. Ideal persons described identically for different words for different paths of spiritual practice

 

This is what the Gita is known for . It treats the different paths different OS's creating the same effect ultimately.

 

17. Variety of terminology for moksha

 

Is this also not common in Upanishads and other such sources too.

19. Was the original dialogue in prose or in verse?

How is it possible to be in prose? Verse was the trend of those times.

 

 

 

 

--

Prof.Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad-500044

[sunil bhattacharjya]

Namaste,

It is not usually realised by people that at the time of the discourse of the Bhagavada Gita Arjuna was 89 years old and that Arjuna has learned all the Veda and Vedanta early in his life. The Pandavas tried their best to avoid the war and even Lord Krishna went as an emissary of the Pandavas to the court of the Kauravas to plead for an amicable understanding and the Pandavas gave up their demand for the Kingdom and settled for demand for only five villages. But all those efforts were in vain and the war became inevitable. At that stage it was Arjuna's duty to stick to the war like a true Kashatriya, but Arjuna faltered after seeing his relatives  and that was very much against the Kshatriya dharma. Lord Krishna was trying to remind Arjuna of that. With the circumstances making Lord of the world available to him as the teacher, Arjuna started asking the Lord the varous doubts he had and one thing led to another and that is how the essence of all the Veda and Vedanta were imparted to him by the Lord. Not only Arjuna was benefitted by that, even all of us became the beneficiaries as Vedavyasa versified the conversation between the Lord and Arjuna. The Lord used all the terms needed to be used, including the synonymous ones (so that Arjuna would not be confused), used in the Vedic texts, but unfortunately many of the modern scholars are getting confused by that.

One who has not looked at the aspects outlined above, may feel that the scope of the Bhagavad Gita  far exceeded than what was needed to prsuade Arjuna to give up the idea of withdrawing from the war. On top of it many of the modern day scholars have not understood the unifying total message of the Gita.  The different Acharya's also looked at the Bhagavad Gita at different levels and that is how they interpreted it differently. Shri Ramakrishna Paramhansha, the great unifier,  used to say that the Advaita, the Vishishtadvaita and the Dvaita are all correct and the so-called difference between them is due to the difference of their levels of understanding. Not only the Bhagavad Gita is not a simple text, even the Mahabharata as a whole is not easily understandable and Vedavyasa realized that and became sad for that. At that stage Narada advised Vedavyasa to compose the Bhagavatam so that it would be understandable to all. 

If I may add,  though Vedavyasa wrote the Mahabharata (including the Khila portion called the Harivamsha) running into 100,000 verses, he did so in three stages, the first one was the  Jaya samhita, which he expanded to the Bharata samhita and the Bharata samhita was narrated by Vaishampayana to Janmejaya, in the presence of Vedavyasa, Sauti and others.. The Bharata samhita had the Bhagavad Gita of 745 verses,as told by Vaishampayana in the Gitaman verse (attached). Vedavyasa thereafter expanded the Bharata samhita further and added the Harivamsha and we have the Mahabharata. This Mahabharata  was later narrated by Sauti to the sages in the Naimisharanya and we find that the Bhagavad Gita in it has 700 verses. I shall not go into these details here, as that can be treated in a different thread, if the members so wish and the moderatorji permits.

Regards,

 

[Ashok Aklujkar]

Prof. Paturi, Much indological research needs to be critically examined the way you have examined G.S. Kaire's book. Thanks.

a.a.

[Sivakumar,Kollam]

SAdara praNAm,

Recently came across a title

"THE ORIGINAL BHAGAVAD GEETHA"

with 745 verses.

by Sunil Kumar Bhattacharjya 

published by Parimal publications.

The work is the result of three decades 

of research by the author who was a scientist

at BARC. Moderately priced @Rs.350/-

and can be ordered from:

e-mail:or...@parimalpublication.com

url:http://www.parimalpublication.com

sivakumarr

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 7:21 AM, Ashok Aklujkar <ashok.a...@gmail.com> wrote:

Prof. Paturi, Much indological research needs to be critically examined the way you have examined G.S. Kaire's book. Thanks.

a.a.

[Ashok Aklujkar]

In my last email, kindly correct "G.S. Khaire" to "G.S. Khair".

a.a.

[Nagaraj Paturi]

Prof. Paturi, Much indological research needs to be critically examined the way you have examined G.S. Kaire's book. Thanks.

       -These words from a textual criticism Guru are quite reassuring.

 

 

Dr. G S Khair's seems to have started off with the first person third person observation and seems to have brought the other

 observations to build the case strongly.

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 7:21 AM, Ashok Aklujkar <ashok.a...@gmail.com> wrote:

Prof. Paturi, Much indological research needs to be critically examined the way you have examined G.S. Kaire's book. Thanks.

a.a.

--
निराशीर्निर्ममो भूत्वा युध्यस्व विगतज्वरः।। (भ.गी.)
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Prof.Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad-500044

[Nagaraj Paturi]

But Sunilji has also said

 

I shall not go into these details here, as that can be treated in a different thread, if the members so wish and the moderatorji permits.

 

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 8:51 AM, Nagaraj Paturi <nagara...@gmail.com> wrote:

Recently came across a title

"THE ORIGINAL BHAGAVAD GEETHA"

with 745 verses.

by Sunil Kumar Bhattacharjya 

 

-Thanks for the info. This is matching with aadaraNIya Sunil Bhattacharjyaji's

 

The Bharata samhita had the Bhagavad Gita of 745 verses,as told by Vaishampayana in the Gitaman verse (attached). Vedavyasa thereafter expanded the Bharata samhita further and added the Harivamsha and we have the Mahabharata. This Mahabharata  was later narrated by Sauti to the sages in the Naimisharanya and we find that the Bhagavad Gita in it has 700 verses.

 

But Sunilji has also said

 

I shall not go into these details here, as that can be treated in a different thread, if the members so wish and the moderatorji permits.

 

 

 

 

 

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 7:58 AM, Nagaraj Paturi <nagara...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dr. G S Khair's is a typo. It was just Dr G S Khair.

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 7:56 AM, Nagaraj Paturi <nagara...@gmail.com> wrote:

Prof. Paturi, Much indological research needs to be critically examined the way you have examined G.S. Kaire's book. Thanks.

       -These words from a textual criticism Guru are quite reassuring.

 

 

Dr. G S Khair's seems to have started off with the first person third person observation and seems to have brought the other

 observations to build the case strongly.

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 7:21 AM, Ashok Aklujkar <ashok.a...@gmail.com> wrote:

Prof. Paturi, Much indological research needs to be critically examined the way you have examined G.S. Kaire's book. Thanks.

a.a.

--
निराशीर्निर्ममो भूत्वा युध्यस्व विगतज्वरः।। (भ.गी.)
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Prof.Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad-500044

--

Prof.Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad-500044

--

Prof.Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad-500044

--

Prof.Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad-500044

[Nagaraj Paturi]

The present no. 18 of the chapters is in matching with the other 18s of works considered to be of Vyasa.

 

Dr. Khair's no.6 , the number of chapters in the original Gita and the number of chapters added by each of the interpolators is in want of an explanation.  When the first interpolator added 6 chapters and the second interpolation was not yet done, the number of chapters stood at 12. Is there a significance for this total number of 12 or added number 6 or there was no significance for these numbers, it just so happened that the number of interpolated chapters turned out to be 6? If this number were to be believed to be arbitrary, then why was the number of chapters added by the second interpolator was again 6? Was it just a coincidence that the original number of chapters was 6 and every interpolation adds only exactly 6 chapters, nothing more nothing less ?

 

  

--

Prof.Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad-500044

[Nagaraj Paturi]

Dr. G S Khair's is a typo. It was just Dr G S Khair.

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 7:56 AM, Nagaraj Paturi <nagara...@gmail.com> wrote:

Prof. Paturi, Much indological research needs to be critically examined the way you have examined G.S. Kaire's book. Thanks.

       -These words from a textual criticism Guru are quite reassuring.

 

 

Dr. G S Khair's seems to have started off with the first person third person observation and seems to have brought the other

 observations to build the case strongly.

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 7:21 AM, Ashok Aklujkar <ashok.a...@gmail.com> wrote:

Prof. Paturi, Much indological research needs to be critically examined the way you have examined G.S. Kaire's book. Thanks.

a.a.

--
निराशीर्निर्ममो भूत्वा युध्यस्व विगतज्वरः।। (भ.गी.)
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Prof.Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad-500044

--

Prof.Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad-500044

[Nagaraj Paturi]

Recently came across a title

"THE ORIGINAL BHAGAVAD GEETHA"

with 745 verses.

by Sunil Kumar Bhattacharjya 

 

-Thanks for the info. This is matching with aadaraNIya Sunil Bhattacharjyaji's

 

The Bharata samhita had the Bhagavad Gita of 745 verses,as told by Vaishampayana in the Gitaman verse (attached). Vedavyasa thereafter expanded the Bharata samhita further and added the Harivamsha and we have the Mahabharata. This Mahabharata  was later narrated by Sauti to the sages in the Naimisharanya and we find that the Bhagavad Gita in it has 700 verses.

 

But Sunilji has also said

 

I shall not go into these details here, as that can be treated in a different thread, if the members so wish and the moderatorji permits.

 

 

 

 

 

--

Prof.Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad-500044

[sunil bhattacharjya]

Madhusudama saraswati seems to have pointed out that the first six chapters is on "Tvam" or you, the Second six chapters are on "Tat"or that, the ultimate truth, the Brahman (Apara to the dvaitins, Para and Apara to the Vishiashtadvaitin and Para to the Advaitin) and the third set of  six chapters are exposition on "Tattvamasi" or you are that.

Regards,

[Nagaraj Paturi]

I thought this paper on Academia is connected to the topic of this old thread :

 

https://www.academia.edu/21508955/Paradigm_lost_The_application_of_the_historical-critical_method_to_the_Bhagavadgita

 

Nagaraj Paturi

 

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

 

Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies

 

FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,

 

(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )