246 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
This is not to be rejected as the view of foreigners. It is fully supported by Prof. Rajwade [1] who goes to show that some of those who had a hand in the composition of the Bhagwat Gita were ignorant of the rules of grammar.
While all are agreed that there have been different editions of the Gita under different editors, they are not agreed as to what parts of the Gita are original and what parts of the Gita are additions subsequently made. In the opinion of the late Rajaram Shastri Bhagwat the original Gita consisted only of 60 Shlokas. Humboldt was inclined to the view that originally the Gita consisted of only the first eleven Adhyayas (chapters) and that 12 to 18 Adhyayas were subsequent additions made to the original. Hopkins’ view is that the first fourteen Adhyayas constitute the heart of the poem. Prof. Rajwade thinks that Adhyayas 10 and 11 are spurious. Prof. Garbe says that 146 verses in the Bhagwat Gita are new and do not belong to the original Gita which means that more than one-fifth of the Gita is new.
Regarding the author of the Gita there is none mentioned. The Gita is a conversation between Arjuna and Krishna which took place on the battle field, in which Krishna propounds his philosophy to Arjuna. The conversation is reported by Sanjaya to Dhritarashtra, the father of the Kauravas. The Gita should have been a part of the Mahabharata, for, the incident which formed the occasion for it, is natural to it, but it does not find a place there. It is a seperate indepenent work. Yet there is no author to whom it is attributed. All that we know, is that Vyas asks Sanjaya to report to Dhritarashtra the conversation that took place between Arjuna and Krishna. One may therefore say that Vyas is the author of the Gita.
(2) VEDANT SUTRAS
As has already been said, the Vedic literature consists of the Vedas, the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas, and the Upanishadas. From the point of their subject matter, this literature falls into two classes (1) literature which deals with religious observances and rites and ceremonies technically called Karma Kanda and (2) literature which deals with the knowledge about God to use the Vedic equivalent; the Brahmanas, technically called ‘Gnanakanda’. The Vedas and the Brahmanas fall under the first category of literature, while the Aranyakas and the Upanishadas fall under the second.
This Vedic literature had grown to enormous proportions and what is important is that, it had grown in a wild manner. Some system,
1 Bhandarkar Memorial Volume.