Let us now turn to the Gītā. What is its place in this long succession? Clearly it is posterior, not only to our first, but also to our second group of Upanishads. For it echoes the Katha, the Svetāsvatara, and several of the others repeatedly;[[50]] its versification is decidedly later in character;[[51]] the doctrines of Grace and of Bhakti, which are found in these Upanishads only in germ, are fully developed in the Gītā;[[52]] while the whole theory of Krishna is a fresh growth.
The Gītā may also be shewn to belong to the same age as the Atharvan Upanishads. It has in common with them (a) the identification of Krishna and Vishnu with the Atman, (b) the doctrine of Avatārs,[[53]] (c) the doctrines of Grace and Bhakti, (d) the Sānkhya-Yoga.
But we may go further, and show that the Gītā is in its teaching, in general, parallel with the third stage of the Mahābhārata and with Manu. For while the usual philosophic standpoint in the Song is Sānkhya-Yoga, there are frequent lapses to the Vedānta; and there is an evident effort here and there to combine all three.[[54]] This is precisely the position of Manu and the Epic, as we have seen. Note that in the Gītā the Yoga philosophy is already old, so old that it has fallen into decay, and requires to be resuscitated.[[55]] The Sānkhya is not a loose group of ideas, but a formed system, as appears from the phrases Sānkhya-Kritānta[[56]] and Guna-sankhyāna.[[57]] Kapila, its author, is so far in the past that he is canonized as the chief of the Siddhas.[[58]] There are many minor points which the Gītā holds in common with the Mahābhārata, and which are not found earlier. The latter half of the tenth chapter is full of Epic mythology. There Skanda is the great warrior-god,[[59]] as in the Mahābhārata,[[60]] there too we find the horse Uccaihsravas,[[61]] the elephant Airāvata,[[62]] the snake Vāsuki,[[63]] the fish Makara.[[64]] Nirvāna is used in the Gītā[[65]] for ‘highest bliss,’ ‘Brahmic bliss,’ precisely as in the Epic.[[66]] In the Mahābhārata Bhīshma, after receiving his mortal wound, has to wait for the Uttarāyana (the northward journey of the sun), i. e., he has to wait until the sun passes the southern solstice, before he can die in safety.[[67]] In the Gītā we find a similar idea: only those devotees who die during the Uttarāyana go to Brahman; those who die during the Dakshināvana return to earth.[[68]] This dogma is not found in the early Upanishads nor yet in the Sūtras.[[69]]
A study of the language of the Gītā[[70]] leads to the same conclusion. A portion of its vocabulary is the same as that of the first group of Upanishads; a larger portion coincides with our second group; a still larger coincides with the diction of the Atharvan group; and finally, much that is found in no Upanishad is characteristic of the Epic.
We need not attempt to fix the date[[71]] of the poem, for that is not only impossible as yet, but is quite unnecessary for our purpose. What we wish to do is to show that the religious literature of India displays a long, regular, evolutionary process, that the Gītā belongs to the same period as the third stage of the Mahābhārata, and is itself clearly the result of all the preceding development.
Can we then accept the declaration of the poem itself, that it was uttered by Krishna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra?—That necessarily depends upon the history and the chronology. At what point then in the historical development of the literature which we have been studying does the famous battle stand?—According to all scholars the great war and the compilation of the Vedas both belong to the same period.[[72]]
The results of our study may, therefore, be tabulated as follows, with the proviso that the long process of the growth of the Epic cannot be fully represented:—
The Hymns of the Vedas.
Compilation of the Vedas . . . KURUKSHETRA.