[Advaita-l] Bhagawat Gita an obscure text?

[Abhishek Madhyastha]

Namaste,

I remember having read somewhere that Swami Vivekananda had said in
one of his speeches or in his teachings that Shankarabhagavatpada
himself wrote the Bhagawadgita. Here's the text I found from a
website:-

 The following are excerpts from
http://www.scribd.com/doc/11767327/The-Gita-as-it-was-by-Phulgenda-Sinha-Rediscovering-the-Original-Bhagavadgita
'Swami Vivekananda strongly doubted the authenticity of the
Bhagavadgita and went all around India in search of the original, but
could not find it. He expressed his hope that, in the future, some
serious effort would be made to locate the original text. While
talking abou tthe authorship of the present Bhagavadgita. Vivekananda
says, "some infer that Shankaracharya was the author of the Gita, and
that it was he who foisted it into the body of the Mahabharata." And
he goes on to mention that, "In ancient times there was very little
tendency in our country to find out truths by historical research." "A
revealing fact about the Bhagavadgita (Song of the Supreme) is that
there is nohistorical evidence of its existence in India prior to the
time of Shankaracharya ( 7 88)-820 A.D.). This implies that the
Bhagavadgita as we know it today could have come intoexistence during
the ninth century A.D. or possibly some time later" "When the original
was changed, the interpolators made those changes in the name of Yoga.
They did not remove what was already there but added to it a new
religious philosophy. The eighteen chapters of the present
Bhagavadgita, have been named after some forms of Yoga. The
interpolators did this to make people believe that theBhagavadgita was
a work of Yoga philosophy and that it contained all with which people
were already familiar." "The distortion of the major philosophical
concepts of ancient India through the corruption of the Bhagavadgita
had a crippling effect on the creative and rational thinking of the
Indian people" "By changing the original Yoga Sutra of Patanjali and
Samkhya Karika of Kapila and by presenting Yoga quite differently in
the Bhagavadgita, the pragmatic qualities of Yogawere completely
replaced by religious, spiritual, and mystical preoccupations.
Further, by naming all 18 chapters of the Bhagavadgita after some form
of Yoga, by defining its aim as achieving unity with God, and by
making renunciation (sanyasa) a part of its practices" "That there was
a separate Gita prior to this Bhagavadgita, which I called the
'originalGita’. ii. That the original Gita began with verse 28 (Ch. I)
of the present Bhagavadgita. iii. That the text of the original Gita
(the ur-text) is intact within the first three chaptersof the extant
Bhagavadgita. iv. That fifteen new chapters were added to the original
Gita when it was altered.Twenty-seven verses were appended before
verse 28 and numerous verses wereinserted among the verses of the
first three chapters to create a supportive link for thevast
interpolations. v. That the original Gita was altered during the time
of Brahmanic revivalism around800 A.D. to propagate the doctrine of
nondualism (advaita) and Vedanta (the end of the Vedas)."

 http://www.speakingtree.in/spiritual-forums/spirituality-and-philosophy/bhagavadgita-as-we-have-it-today-is-it-a-manipulated-version

Regards,

Abhishek Madhyastha

On 11/8/12, Suresh <mayavaadi at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Namaste,
>
> Is it true that the Gita was an insignificant text until Adi Sankar
> commented on it? There aren't many commentaries on it prior to his,
> probably because no saint or scholar thought it worth his time. But once
> Sankar wrote his commentary, it has almost become a tradition for every
> school to write one. Today Gita and Hinduism have become synonymous.
>
> My question, however, is, why would Sankar choose such an insignificant text
> when the Upanishads were much more respected and valued? If he had to, why
> not something else (like yoga vasista or something with a more advaitic
> tilt)?
>
> Suresh
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