Introduction The mere existence of one provincial recension does not pro fact० exclude the possible existence of others. Dr. Belvakar had; in hi article in the NIA. above referred to, advanced an argument against the propriety of the title given by Dr. Schrader that there may come a time for the recognition of Bengali and Malayalam recensions of the Gita as well because the MSS. written in the scripts of those linguistic regions also exhibited peculiarities similar to those written in the Sarada script. However none has as yet come forward with such a claim and now the doctor himself admits that there is not such uniform tradition behind the MSS. coming from Bengal and Malabar as there is behind those coming from Kasmir,
But while admitting the existence of a separate Kakmir recension he does not admit that it has other than a second-rate importance and that it is anterior to the time of Sankara. He vehementiy attacks in his said article in the NIA., Schrader's view that there must have been two different recensions of the Gita prior to the Vulgate and the Kakmir recension, one a longer and the other a shorter one, and baa tried to make out that the 1 stanzas which according to Schrader con stitute “f coercive literary evidence → can be explained away on taking into consideration the stanzas contained in Giddra No2, of which separate MSS. are in existence in the Institute's Library at Poona. According to him Gitaedira No. 2 may have been included while com puting the total number of stanzas in the work just as the Haricania though a Khilaparvan of the Mahabhirata, is at times included amongst the Parvana thereof. We are not concerned here with the way in which he makes up the total of 745 stanzas from the texts of the G2a and the GEdira together. Sufice it to say, that he draws attention to the fact that although Keshav Kashmirin has quoted the standina targa from the Bhimparea as current in Kamir, he has com mented only on just the 700 stanzas on which Saikara has commented in his Bhaya and remarks:-"So too when A1'Beruni or when the Persian translators of the Gita gave the extent of the poem as 745 stanzas, we need not be surprised if their Gita is just the ordinary Gita of 700 stanzan -or if differing from it, the difference is due to the inclusion of the Gaira into the Gita proper It is obvious from this that the learned Doctor had not made himself sure whether his conjecture wa ०r was not borne out by the versions utilised by ABeruni or the Persian translators. also appears from and a statement It a foot-note in the previously-mentioned article that he hoped to consider in future the effect of the Msof A. D. 1179 on which Sastri Jivarm claimed to have based his edition and a hitherto unpublished commentary, which
1. Annale of the BOR, vol. IX, PP. 335-48,
