Bhagavadgita and Mahabharata (was: SV: creation of human kind)

[Georg von Simson]

 Mani Varadarajan wrote (I quote only one passage of his answer to N. Ganesan):

>I think you should be a lot more skeptical.
>There is not even any manuscript evidence that the Gita was
>interpolated into the Mahabharata ...

There is indeed manuscript evidence for the interpolation of the Gita in
the Mahabharata: Immediately *after* the Bhagavadgita, the narrator
continues in 6.42.2 (Poona edition):
   bhrAtRbhiH sahito rAjan putro duryodhanas tava |
   bhISmaM pramukhataH kRtvA prayayau saha senayA ||
Instead of the first line, several northern manuscripts (B, Da, Dn, D4,5,8)
read:
   bhrAtus tad vacanaM zrutvA putro DuHzAsanas tava ("When Duhsasana had
   heard these words of his brother")
and this can only refer to a passage several chapters *before* the
Bhagavadgita, i.e. Duryodhana's admonition to Duhsasana 6.16.11-20 to
protect Bhisma. That the verses belong together in this way is confirmed by
a parallel in 6.95.4-23 which ends with precisely the same lines:
   bhrAtus tad vacanaM zrutvA putro DuHzAsanas tava |
   bhISmaM pramukhataH kRtvA prayayau saha senayA ||
So - though all the mansucripts used by the Poona edition contain the Gita
- the variae lectiones leave little doubt that there once existed
manuscripts which did not include the Bhagavadgita and the chapters
preceding it.
I have presented these facts in detail in my article (in German) in
Indo-Iranian Journal 11 (1969), p. 159-174. Angelika Malinar in her recent
(and otherwise highly recommendable) book (in German) on the Bhagavadgita
("rAjavidyA: Das koenigliche Wissen um Herrschaft und Verzicht. Studien zur
BhagavadgItA", Wiesbaden 1996, = PurANa Research Publications, Tuebingen,
Vol. 5) has tried to refute my arguments, without convincing me, because
she does not take the manuscriptual evidence seriously. I agree with her,
though, that the Gita probably has been devised for the Mahabharata and not
as an independent text.

Regards,

Georg v. Simson