Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume VIII.djvu/19



and organised system of philosophy. There is not even a trace of consciousness on the part of the author that these inconsistencies exist. And the contexts of the various passages indicate, in my judgment, that a half-truth is struck out here, and another half-truth there, with special reference to the special subject then under discussion; but no attempt is made to organise the various half-truths, which are apparently incompatible, into a symmetrical whole, where the apparent inconsistencies might possibly vanish altogether in the higher synthesis. And having regard to these various points, and to the further point, that the sequence of ideas throughout the verses of the Gîtâ is not always easily followed, we are, I think, safe in adhering to the opinion expressed above, that the Gîtâ is a nonsystematic work, and in that respect belongs to the same class as the older Upanishads.

We next come to the consideration of the style and language of the Bhagavadgîtâ. And that, I think, furnishes a strong argument for the proposition, that it belongs to an age considerably prior to the epoch of the artificial department of Sanskrit literature—the epoch, namely, of the dramas and poems. In its general character, the style impresses me as quite archaic in its simplicity. Compounds, properly so called, are not numerous; such as there are, are not long ones, and very rarely, if ever, present any puzzle in analysing. The contrast there presented with what is called the classical literature, as represented by Bâna or Dandin, or even Kâlidâsa, is not a little striking. In Kâlidâsa, doubtless, the love for compounds is pretty well subdued, though I think his works have a perceptibly larger proportion of them than the Gîtâ. But after Kâlidâsa the love for compounds goes through a remarkable development, till in later writings it may be said almost to have gone mad. Even in Bâna and Dandin, Subandhu and Bhavabhûti, the plethora of compounds is often wearisome. And the same remark applies to many of the copperplate and other inscriptions which have been recently deciphered, and some of which date from the early centuries