October, 1873.] CHRISTIAN TRACES IN THE BHAGAVAD GiTA. , 283 By the decree of God, in the city of Bej&pur, [the mausoleum of ? ] the Ma £&heb Sh&hzadi is con¬ tiguous to the mosk. In the city of Bejapur and Namujpuri the expenses of the mosk, the founda¬ tion of the edifice, and the building, were defrayed by tho Sirk6r of the Padesh&h ’Aly ’Adil Sh&b. Muza’ BhosUn, Muza’ Aisapur, Srol. Muza Bhopan. Muza’ Pang&ri Khard, Muza’ Bhu- raviti. Muza’ Mundrar, Muza’ Chivili. Su¬ perintendent Kamel Khan built the mosk of Ma C&heb. TRACES IN THE BHAGAYAD-GITA OF CHRISTIAN WRITINGS AND IDEAS. From the Appendix to Dr. Lorinser's Bhagavad-Gita.• To prove that in the manifold and often sur¬ prising coincidence of thoughts and expressions in the Bhagavad-Gita, as well with single pas¬ sages in the New Testament, as with the com¬ mon Christian ideas and principles, we have no accidental similarities, but that an actual borrowing has taken place, it may not be superfluous to exhibit in a collective form the results already won, and from them to draw some further conclusions which give such a high degree of probability to tho opinion that the doctrines of the Bhagavad-Gita are not only an eclectic mixture of different Indian philoso¬ phies, but have also a strong infusion at least of ideas and sayings taken over from Chris¬ tianity, that it may almost lay claim to cer¬ tainty. Up to the present time the means for an accurate chronology of Indian Antiquity are entirely wanting, and in judging of the age of the literary monuments we can only speak of relative dates. Our aim here then must be to establish that the Bhagavad-Gita may bo attributed to a period in which it is not impos¬ sible that its composer may have been acquaint¬ ed with Christianity and its sacred writings, that is to say, with different books of the New Testament. And here we do not need to depart from the results of modern criticism of the age of the Bhagavad-Gita. On the one hand it is cer¬ tain that it dates after Buddha, and on the other hand there is the strongest reason to believe that its composition must be attributed to a period terminating several centuries after the commencement of the Christian era. The date after which it could not have been composed must, however, be left an open question till we are certain when Sankara, • Die Bhaqavad Oita uebersetzt und erlautert von Dr. F. Lorinser (Breslau, 1869). ’AAAa kai 2upot, jcat Alyvmioi, kot *Iv5ol, ftai TUpaai, Kaii AlOioires, koi fivpia crepa eOvq, fit ttv airriov the renowned philosopher of the Vedanta school, lived. According to the usual hy¬ pothesis, resting, it must be confessed, on weighty reasons, which however can make no claim to irrefragable certainty, Sankara lived in the 8th century after Christ. Hence Lassen infers that the Bhagavad-Gita must have been composed some five centuries earlier, i. e. in the third century after Christ. If this sup¬ position is correct (and it must not be forgotten that it only professes to give the earliest date at which the Bhagavad-Gita could have been composed), it is clear that the composer of the poem might have had some acquaintance with the doctrines and sacred records of Christianity. For we know that there were already at that time Christian communities in India, in which from Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. lib. V. cap. 10) we learn that Pantmnus, a mis¬ sionary who had penetrated to India as early as the second century, found, and brought to Alexandria on his return, a copy of the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, whioh had apparently been taken there by the apostle Bartholomew. Further, and this is of peculiar importance in the present discussion, there already existed an Indian translation of the New Testament, of which we have positive proof in the writings of St. Chrysostom, which seems to have been till now overlooked by Indian antiquarians. The place in questionf is Evang. Joan., Eomil. I. cap. 1, and runs as folloVs :— “ The Syrians, too, and Egyptians, and Indians, and Persians, and Ethiopians, and in¬ numerable other nations, translating into their own tongues the doctrines derived from this man, barbarians though they were, learnt to philosophise.” We might be tempted to regard the importance p.tTaftaA6vrc s ySyrrav ra irapa tovtov boy para d(ra^- Oevra, tpaOov avdpcoiroi fiapfiupoi (f)io<ro<frflv.—(Ed. Montfaucon, tom. viii. pp. 11, 12.).
