Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume VIII.djvu/7

 TO has become quite a literary commonplace, that—to borrow the words of Professor Max Müller in one of his recent lectures—history, in the ordinary sense of the word, is almost unknown in Indian literature. And it is certainly a remarkable irony of fate, that we should be obliged to make this remark on the very threshold of an introduction to the Bhagavadgîtâ; for according to the eminent French philosopher, Cousin, this great deficiency in Sanskrit literature is due, in no inconsiderable measure, to the doctrines propounded in the Bhagavadgîtâ itself. But however that may be, this much is certain, that the student of the Bhagavadgîtâ must, for the present, go without that reliable historical information touching the author of the work, the time at which it was composed, and even the place it occupies in literature, which one naturally desires, when entering upon the study of any work. More especially in an attempt like the present, intended as it mainly is for students of the history of religion, I should have been better pleased, if I could, in this Introduction, have concentrated to a focus, as it were, only those well ascertained historical results, on which there is something like a consensus of opinion among persons qualified to judge. But there is no exaggeration in saying, that it is almost impossible to lay down even a single proposition respecting any important matter connected with the Bhagavadgîtâ, about which any such consensus can be said to exist. The conclusions arrived at in this Introduction must, therefore, be distinctly