Introduction at a sort of samanvaya (correlation) among different Indian philosophical schools and by the apparent simplicity and remarkable flexibility of the language of the BG. It's profound influence on Ag. is discernible in his earlier writings like the Paramarthasara, Tantraloka, Isvarapratyabhijñāvivṛtis etc. Therefore, besides being requested by his Brāhmaṇa relative Lotaka to elucidate the BG,* Ag. seems to have been compelled inwardly by his own philosophical spirit to write the GS.5 In fact Ag. holds the BG in a very high esteem and calls it once as Adisiddhasutra (aphorism of the Foremost among the Beatified). II xvii Like Anandavardhana, Ag. maintains : The chief purpose of Dvaipayana (Vyasa) in writing the MB is to show that the highest reward of human pursuit is emancipation. This subject of emancipa- tion is dealt with in various sections of the MB; but 1. See pt. II, pp. 117, 139, 264. 2. See pt. II, pp. 175, 177-78, 200-01, 264. 3. See pt. II, pp. 41, 93, 137, 155-56, 214, 237, 265. 14. See Ag.'s concluding verse 2 in the GS. 5. To say that the GS is unusually devoid of interest and that Ag. felt pressurised by his relative to write it is to overlook ofthese facts and to be oblivious of the totality of the con- tents of the GS. Cf. J.L. Mason and M.V. Patwardhan: Santarasa and Abhinava gupta's Philosophy of Aesthetics (Poona, 1969) pp. 24-25. 6. See pt. II, p. 137. It may be of interest to note that no other teacher of the Kashmir Saiva school seems to have held the BG in such a high esteem. 7. GS, intro, verse 2. Gita-3
