Text layers in the Gita

[Steven E. Lindquist]

[Note: I am stepping away from the argument of BhG as unitary or not, as I
more concerned here with the larger issues of method]

Is it not possible, however, to look at a text as both a series of layers
AND as a unified whole?  An academic double-vision, as it were?  That is, by
looking at the intentions/arguments of various layers of a text along with
the intentions/arguments of the text as a whole, we can then see how these
two aspects intersect?

Witzel has (perhaps not directly enough for some) argued as much in a Rgveda
paper on the interaction of the Kuru 'state' and the books of the Rgveda
reaching there present form (citation not at hand).  It seems to me that
this is an important way of understanding historically why and how texts are
brought together, how they become thought of as unitary, and how they gain
the authority that they have.  This also seems an interesting means for
attempting to theorize what a redactor may have intended (cf. Patton's "Myth
as Argument"), how texts become canon, and why people believe what they
believe.

Perhaps this is not completely appealing to people who do have faith in the
particular text, idea, or god, etc. under analysis, but it seems to me to be
at least a sympathetic, yet historically informed, way to approach these
issues.

regards,

s

--
Steven E. Lindquist
email: s-lindquist at the-foundry.net

In the US:                    In India:
Doctoral Candidate            AIIS Junior Fellow/Affiliated Research Scholar
Dept. of Asian Studies        Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute
University of TX at Austin    Pune, Maharashtra
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