Gita Rahasya -Tilak 621

Srimad Bhagavadgita-Rahasya OR Karma-Yoga-Sastra -Bal Gangadhar Tilak

CHAPTER XV APPENDIX (7). In the Mahabharata, the enumeration of constellations does not start with Asvini, but with Krttika.  ; and the zodiacal signs Mesa, Vrsabha, etc are nowhere mentioned. This is a matter of very great importance from the point of view of the date of the Mahabharata ; because, one can easily draw the inference from this fact that the Mahabharata must have been written before the zodiacal signs Mesa, Vrsabha etc. were known in India as a result of contact with the Greeks, that is to say, before the date of Alexander. But a still more important fact is the enumeration of the constellations starting with Sravana. It is stated in the Anugita that Visvamitra started the enumeration of the constellations with Sravana . That has been interpreted by commentators as showing that the Uttarayana then started with the Sravana constellation, and no other interpretation is proper. At the date of the Vedanga-Jyotisa, the Uttarayana used to start with the Sun in the Dhanistha. constellation. According to astronomical calculations, the date when the Uttarayana should start with the Sun in the Dhanistha constellation comes to about 1500 years before the Saka era ; and according to astronomical calculations, it takes about a thousand years for the Uttarayana to start one constellation earlier. According to this calculation, the date when the Uttarayana ought to start with the Sun in the Sravana constellation comes to about 500 years before the Saka era. Therefore, it can be proved mathematically that the present Mahabharata must have been written about 500 years before the Saka era. The late Mr. Shankar Balkrishna Dikshit has drawn the same conclusion in his Bharatiya Jyotih-Sastra. . The important feature of this evidence is that the date of the present Mahabharata cannot be taken to much more than 500 years before the Saka era. (8).Rao Bahadur Vaidya has in his criticism in English on (the Mahabharata shown that the Greek ambassador named Megasthenes, at the Court of Chandragupta (320 B. C.), knew some of the stories in the Mahabharata. The works of Megasthenes are not now available in their entirety. But extracts made from them by other persons have been collected together, and were first published in German ; and they have been translated into English by M'Crindle. It is stated in this book, (pp. 200-205), that the Heracles mentioned by Megasthenes was none but Sri Krsna ; and that at the date of Megasthenes, this Sri Krsna, used to be worshipped by the Sauraseni people, and that these Sauraseni people used to live in Muttra. It is also stated there that Heracles was the fifteenth in line of descent from Dionisus ; and there is a statement even in the Mahabharata that Sri Krsna was fifteenth in line of descent from Daksa Prajapati. Also the descriptions given by Megasthenes (p. 94) of the karma-pravarana, ekapada (one-footed — Trans.), lalataksa (cyclops, with one eye only in the forehead— Trans.) and other strange people, and of ants (pipilika ) who bring up gold are also to be found in the Mahabharata . These and other facts clearly prove that not only the Mahabharata but also the history of Sri Krsna and the worship of Sri Krsna were in Vogue already at the date of Megasthenes.