Who Wrote Bhagavad Gita
Bhagavad Gita, the song of Bhagavad, is the dialogue between Sri Krishna and Arjuna. Having emerged from the mouth of Lord Krishna, it is venerated by all sections of Hindus. But who is the author of Bhagavad Gita? The authorship of the book is neither credited to Sri Krishna nor to his protégé Arjuna. Sanjaya, blessed with the supernatural eyes, who reported the dialogues to King Dhritarashtra didn’t pen down the discourse. Almost a century after the conclusion of the great battle of Bharata, the sage Vaisampayana narrated the tale of Mahabharata to Janamejaya, a great grandson of Arjuna. Vaisampayana was the pupil of Vyas to whom the authorship of Mahabharata is attributed. After composing the tale of Bharata, Vyas first narrated it to his son Suka Dev followed by his other pupils. Now the question that arises in this context is that whether Vyas, the author of Mahabharata and the preceptor of Vaisampayana, is the same Vyas who is known as Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyas in Mahabharata, who is the son of the sage Parashara and Satyabati (who later married King Santanu, the great grandfather of the scions of Bharata) and father of Suka Dev? While retelling the saga of Bharata, Vaisampayana had described an incident that occurred before the great battle of Bharata. According to that tale, which is part of the great epic of Mahabharata, Vyas lost his son Suka long before the battle of Kurukshetra (Mahabharata 12.334). Is it possible to retell a tale to a son who was already dead? Mahabharata is replete with such contradictions.
If Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyas is not the author of Mahabharata, and therefore of Bhagavad Gita, then who is its author? Throughout Mahabharata, Vyas is the third person narrator. In Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna had declared – among sages I am Vyas ( Bhagavad Gita 10.37). Hence, through Sri Krishna Vyas affirms his superiority! It’s therefore unlikely that Vyas, the author of Mahabharata, and the sage Vyas are the same person. Vyas is an honorific title similar to titles of honour conferred on men and women of letters. In the modern time, it is a common surname. Hence, Vyas has survived for centuries. He is immortal. Though it is difficult to prove, nevertheless it appears that in the ancient times writers used to narrate in third person or to popularize their tales penned them under pen names of famous sages such as Vyas or Valmiki. (Ref:Critical Review of Bhagavad Gita)
Swami Dayanada Saraswati refers to a rare book titled Sanjivani written by Raja Bhoja where Bhoja writes about pundits during his reign writing Markendya and the Shiva Purana and declaring them as works of Vyas. To prevent such misuse of names of ancient sages, the King punished the pundits by chopping off their hands. Raja Bhoja further claims that the original Mahabharata comprised 10,000 verses of which 4,400 verses were the works of Vyas, and the remaining 5,600 were written by his pupils. During the rule of King Vikramaditya 10,000 more verses were added to the epic. During Raja Bhoja’s father’s time the number of verses in the great epic increased to 25,000, and by the time Raja Bhoja was in his middle-age, Mahabharata was a 30,000 verses long magnum opus (Source: Satyarth Prakash: A True Face of Hinduism & an Agenda for Reformation of World Religions pp 361-362). However, Raja Bhoja, who reigned and wrote between 1010 and 1055 CE, didn’t mention whether Bhagavad Gita was present in the original epic or was incorporated at a later date.
The first surviving commentary on Bhagavad Gita was written by the great Advaitin monk Shankara who lived in the early 8th century, probably between 788 and 820 CE. It’s therefore obvious that Bhagavad Gita was segregated from the main Mahabharata and existed as a separate book at that time. It was this commentary by Shankara that is believed to have brought Bhagavad Gita to the limelight, as few people seem to have been aware of this part of Mahabharata before Shankara penned the Gita Bhasya. However, this is a contentious issue as some scholars believe that Bhagavad Gita was initially written as a separate book and at a later date incorporated into the tome. In fact some scholars attribute the authorship of Gita to Adi Shankaracharya, though there is no historical proof, and given the contradictions inherent in Gita, it’s unlikely that the writer of Saririka-Bhasya was the author of Gita.
Owing to the presence of the doctrine of Karma, which is essentially a Buddhist concept, in Gita, historians such as D.D. Kosambi believe that Gita couldn’t have been written before Buddhism had fully emerged as a distinct philosophy. The word “Brahma-Nirvana” (Bhagabad Gita 2.72 & 5.25) in Bhagabad Gita is similar to the state of liberation from the effect of Karma or Nirvana as mentioned in Buddhism. In fact, Bhagavad was originally a title of Buddha. Furthermore, references to the ancient philosophies of Samkhya, Mimmasa and early Vedanta or Brahmasutra in the Gita verses clearly indicate that at the time when Gita was being penned down these philosophies were well-developed. The most prevalent metre of Mahabharata was Tristubh, which is the same ancient Vedic metre comprising of 4 padas each comprising of 11 syllables in which most part of the Vedas had been written. However, the language of Bhagavad Gita was primarily in classical Sanskrit interspersed with Tristubh. Through these arguments Kosambhi suggests that Bhagavad Gita was written during the reign of the Guptas when classical Sanskrit was highly developed. According to him, it was composed between 150 and 350 AD. Nevertheless, the identity of the author of Bhagavad Gita is still shrouded in mystery.
If Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyas is not the author of Mahabharata, and therefore of Bhagavad Gita, then who is its author? Throughout Mahabharata, Vyas is the third person narrator. In Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna had declared – among sages I am Vyas ( Bhagavad Gita 10.37). Hence, through Sri Krishna Vyas affirms his superiority! It’s therefore unlikely that Vyas, the author of Mahabharata, and the sage Vyas are the same person. Vyas is an honorific title similar to titles of honour conferred on men and women of letters. In the modern time, it is a common surname. Hence, Vyas has survived for centuries. He is immortal. Though it is difficult to prove, nevertheless it appears that in the ancient times writers used to narrate in third person or to popularize their tales penned them under pen names of famous sages such as Vyas or Valmiki. (Ref:Critical Review of Bhagavad Gita)
Swami Dayanada Saraswati refers to a rare book titled Sanjivani written by Raja Bhoja where Bhoja writes about pundits during his reign writing Markendya and the Shiva Purana and declaring them as works of Vyas. To prevent such misuse of names of ancient sages, the King punished the pundits by chopping off their hands. Raja Bhoja further claims that the original Mahabharata comprised 10,000 verses of which 4,400 verses were the works of Vyas, and the remaining 5,600 were written by his pupils. During the rule of King Vikramaditya 10,000 more verses were added to the epic. During Raja Bhoja’s father’s time the number of verses in the great epic increased to 25,000, and by the time Raja Bhoja was in his middle-age, Mahabharata was a 30,000 verses long magnum opus (Source: Satyarth Prakash: A True Face of Hinduism & an Agenda for Reformation of World Religions pp 361-362). However, Raja Bhoja, who reigned and wrote between 1010 and 1055 CE, didn’t mention whether Bhagavad Gita was present in the original epic or was incorporated at a later date.
The first surviving commentary on Bhagavad Gita was written by the great Advaitin monk Shankara who lived in the early 8th century, probably between 788 and 820 CE. It’s therefore obvious that Bhagavad Gita was segregated from the main Mahabharata and existed as a separate book at that time. It was this commentary by Shankara that is believed to have brought Bhagavad Gita to the limelight, as few people seem to have been aware of this part of Mahabharata before Shankara penned the Gita Bhasya. However, this is a contentious issue as some scholars believe that Bhagavad Gita was initially written as a separate book and at a later date incorporated into the tome. In fact some scholars attribute the authorship of Gita to Adi Shankaracharya, though there is no historical proof, and given the contradictions inherent in Gita, it’s unlikely that the writer of Saririka-Bhasya was the author of Gita.
Owing to the presence of the doctrine of Karma, which is essentially a Buddhist concept, in Gita, historians such as D.D. Kosambi believe that Gita couldn’t have been written before Buddhism had fully emerged as a distinct philosophy. The word “Brahma-Nirvana” (Bhagabad Gita 2.72 & 5.25) in Bhagabad Gita is similar to the state of liberation from the effect of Karma or Nirvana as mentioned in Buddhism. In fact, Bhagavad was originally a title of Buddha. Furthermore, references to the ancient philosophies of Samkhya, Mimmasa and early Vedanta or Brahmasutra in the Gita verses clearly indicate that at the time when Gita was being penned down these philosophies were well-developed. The most prevalent metre of Mahabharata was Tristubh, which is the same ancient Vedic metre comprising of 4 padas each comprising of 11 syllables in which most part of the Vedas had been written. However, the language of Bhagavad Gita was primarily in classical Sanskrit interspersed with Tristubh. Through these arguments Kosambhi suggests that Bhagavad Gita was written during the reign of the Guptas when classical Sanskrit was highly developed. According to him, it was composed between 150 and 350 AD. Nevertheless, the identity of the author of Bhagavad Gita is still shrouded in mystery.
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