Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume VIII.djvu/22



of Pingala on the Khandas Sâstra. I will only conclude this point by saying, that the argument from the versification of the Gîtâ, so far as it goes, indicates its position as being prior to the classical literature, and nearly contemporaneous with the Upanishad literature.

We now proceed to investigate the last-group of facts falling under the head of internal evidence, as mentioned above. And first as regards the attitude of the Gîtâ towards the Vedas. If we examine all the passages in the Gîtâ, in which reference is made to the Vedas, the aggregate result appears to be, that the author of the Gîtâ does not throw the Vedas entirely overboard. He feels and expresses reverence for them, only that reverence is of a somewhat special character. He says in effect, that the precepts of the Vedas are suitable to a certain class of people, of a certain intellectual and spiritual status, so to say. So far their authority is unimpeached. But if the unwise sticklers for the authority of the Vedas claim anything more for them than this, then the author of the Gîtâ holds them to be wrong. He contends, on the contrary, that acting upon the ordinances of the Vedas is an obstacle to the attainment of the summum bonum. Compare this with the doctrine of the Upanishads. The coincidence appears to me to be most noteworthy. In one of his recent lectures, Professor Max Müller uses the following eloquent language regarding the Upanishads : 'Lastly come the Upanishads; and what is their object? To show the utter uselessness, nay, the mischievousness of all ritual performances (compare our Gîtâ, pp. 47, 48, 84 ); to condemn every sacrificial act which has for its motive a desire or hope of reward (comp. Gîtâ, p. 119 ); to deny, if not the existence, at least the exceptional and exalted character of the Devas (comp. Gîtâ, pp. 76-84 ); and to teach that there is no hope of salvation and deliverance except by the individual self recognising the true and universal self, and finding rest there, where alone rest can be found ' (comp. our Gîtâ Translation, pp. 78-83).