Text layers in the Gita

[Yaroslav Vassilkov]

It is a pity that Martin Gansten took decision to refrain from further
posting on the subject. Otherwise I would ask him how it is possible that
a supposedly unitary text - the GItA - just after its culmination point,
i.e. after the inspired theistic hymn and the magnificent poetic vision of
VizvarUpa in Chapter 12, suddenly turns to rather dull JnAna-oriented, SAMkyaic
speculations and classifications, and further on, up to the end of the poem in
Chapter 18, with an exception of some small "synthetic" interpolations, in letter
and in spirit contradicts the GItA's basic ideas (of karma-yoga and theism/bhakti),
but resembles rather the SAMkhyaic AnugItA - a text written at least 6 centuries
later than the GItA's "core".
        And, after all, many Ancient Indian texts grew as a result of
adding subsequent "interpolation layers" in the end; as, e.g., the first
that comes to mind now -
Milindapanha, whose first chapters were supposedly written in NW
India in the very beginning of 1st century AD, while its last part -
in Shri Lanka at least 5 or 4 centuries later.
Best regards,
                                        Yaroslav Vassilkov

Tue, 27 Mar 101 09:30 +0300 MSK Martin Gansten wrote to INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK:

 Not wishing to be
> dragged into one of these pointless back-and-forths, I will refrain from
> further posting after this one.
> >Mine was merely given to drive the point home, comparandum: reading ANY
> >text as unitary, not to dissect/interpret the Bible.
>
 Do you really mean to say that,
> axiomatically, NO text can ever be unitary? ... the idea seems rather a fantastic
one -- especially if we are
> discussing a text that fills only some 30-40 printed pages.
>

> Nobody is denying (or at least I am not) that the Gita builds on and
> attempts to harmonize older sources and ideas. The question I was
> addressing is whether the Gita itself (those 30-40 pages) was composed in
> 'layers', over time -- something I find highly unlikely. The Gita is a
> synthetic text: it starts out with conflicting points of view and tries to
> synthesize them. But synthesis doesn't always sit well with the scholarly
> community, which makes its living chiefly by analysis!

> That's it. Nothing further from me on this subject.
>
> Regards,
> Martin Gansten
>
---
Yaroslav Vassilkov (yavass at YV1041.spb.edu)
Institute of Oriental Studies
Tue, 27 Mar 101 19:51 +0300 MSK