श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता गीतार्थसंग्रहोपेता fact, it can be safely inferred that Ag. knew also the bhasya of Sankarācārya who is refuted quite often by Bhaskarācārya in his BG commentary. In the GS itself we have instances that seem to corroborate this surmise. Besides, there is the Sarvatobhadra, a commentary on the BG by another Kashmirian writer by name Rājānaka Rāmakantha. This author is assigned to a date earlier than that of Ag. If this is acceptable then it is not improbable that Ag. knew Ramakantha's commentary also. Further Ag. refers to his preceptor's views on certain verses of the BG.³ All these seem to indicate that in the Kashmir valley of Ag.'s time there were heated discussions on the purport and philosophy of the BG. It is to be borne in mind that Sankara's bhasya roused sharp criticism first among these who followed the Kashmirian text of the BG, viz. Bhaskara." Its reaction from the South came later in the form of the Visiştädvaita commentary by Ramanujācārya (c. 1100 A. D). xvi It is therefore nothing but natural that Ag., one of the great thinkers of his age, was attracted by the profound philosophy, the practical approach to arrive 1. See e.g. pt. II, pp. 14, 15, 73, 92, 94, 117, 173, 181, 252-54 etc. 2. I.e. to the end of the ninth century A. D. See Srimad Bhagavadgita with Sarvatobhadra: Ed. T. R. Chintamani : Madras, 1941 intro. p. xl. Madhusudan Kaul also seems to suggest more or less the same period for the author. See his edition Bhagavadg ta with Sarvatobhadra: Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies, No. LXIV (1949): intro p. 10.. 3. Ch. VIII, 27; ch. IX 24-27; ch. XV, 12-14. 4. It is also probable that Ramakantha who follows Bhaskara knows Sankara's bhasya.
