Mimamsa

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Mimamsa

Doctrines Mimamsa is a Sanskrit word meaning "investigation, inquiry,

discussion." The term was applied to one of the six Hindu
philosophical darsanas, viewpoints. In this context Mimamsa would
have fully meant "the investigation of the proper interpretation of
the Vedic texts." The Mimamsa school is better known as the Purva
Mimamsa school, meaning the Prior School of Investigation,
because it is concerned with the earlier or prior section of the Vedas.
Vedanta is alternatively called Uttara Mimamsa as it studies the later
(uttara) part of the Vedas. Purva and Uttara are not only
chronological terms but can be applied in a theological way with
Purva as religiously basic and Uttara as religiously superior. Purva
Mimamsa is sometimes called Dharma Mimamsa as it is an
investigation into the dharma established by the Vedas. Another
name is Karma Mimamsa because it is primarily concerned with
sacrifice (karman).
Dharma is a key word in Mimamsa doctrine, being used in the sense
of sacred and moral duties. It also means the virtue obtained by
following actions in accord with the dharma. Mimamsa claims that
the scriptures are the only way of knowing about dharma, and only
by following the scriptures can we attain dharma as the good.
The main text is the Mimamsa Sutra of Jaimini, an ancient sage.
Mimamsa deals at length with the ritual commands in the Vedas and
ignores the hymns and much else. The Mimamsa Sutra describes the
different sacrifices and what they are for, and elaborates the theory
of apurva, which is the mysterious, transcendent power produced by
a correctly performed sacrificial ritual, not through the action of
gods. The results of the sacrifice often come after the death of the
person performing the ritual. The Vedas are eternal and uncreated,
thus precluding their divine origin. They are the expression in
sacred words of the eternal, ritual, and moral order of the world. As
the world is eternal, the idea of God as the ultimate cause is
superfluous. Jaimini also rejects a deity as the creator of the relation
between word and meaning, saying that this relationship is innate.
To establish the truth of Vedic injunctions, Mimamsa tries to prove
that words and their meanings and the relationship between the two
are eternal. Because of this philosophy of language and linguistics,
Mimamsa is also called vakya-sastra, theory of speech. The sacred
word (sabda) was divided into three headings according to the
performance of the yagna, sacrifice. These are mantra, sacred
utterances of the ritual, vidhi, directives to act or not to act, and
arthavada, statements explaining the ritual or the hidden reality
underlying it.
The Mimamsa school divided into two subschools, named the
Bhatta school and the Prabhakara school after their main exponents,
 Mimamsa

Kumarila Bhatta and Prabhakara. There are many minor differences

between the schools.
History Mimamsa originated not as a school but as a successor to the ritual
Sutra literature, whose purpose was to correctly interpret the Vedas.
The focus was on ritual traditions found in the Vedas and also the
Brahmanas. In using these texts for the sacrifices priests had met
with numerous difficulties. The texts contain an imperfect and
obscure description of the rituals and are interspersed continually
with speculations on the mystical meaning of the separate ritual acts
and the implements used. It was the function of the Mimamsa
school to solve these problems by providing principles from their
investigation which would give guidance in the interpretation of
Vedic texts for performing the sacrificial rituals.
The earliest Mimamsa text is also the most important, the Mimamsa
Sutra of Jaimini, composed between 300 and 100 BCE. The first
surviving commentary on Jaimini is by Sabara in the fifth or sixth
century CE, who developed Jaimini's arguments and also defined
dharma more exactly.
The Vedic orientation of Mimamsa meant that as bhakti, devotional
worship, developed it was rejected.
The Mimamsa school divided into the subschools of the
Prabhakaras and the Bhattas. The Prabhakaras followed their most
important exponent, Prabhakara, who lived around the fifth to sixth
centuries CE, while the Bhattas followed their main exponent,
Kumarila Bhatta, who lived in the eighth century CE. Kumarila was
influenced by the study of Buddhist logic developed by Dignaga (c.
480-540) and Dharmakirti (c. 600-670).
Mimamsa was to provide the basis for Tantric linguistic or
metalinguistic speculations.
Only Mimamsa and Vedanta of the six Hindu philosophical schools
have ongoing continuity into the present.
Symbols Symbol in Mimamsa is mainly expressed in the sacrificial ritual. In
the Brahmanas the ritual microcosmos is related to the
macrocosmos and to the life of the individual. This is through the
identification of ritual acts, objects, and implements with the
elements of the macrocosmos and with parts of the sacrificer's body.
In the Vedas there is more treatment of the associative ramifications
of symbolic connections.
Adherents Mimamsa persists today in the two subschools of the Prabhakaras
and the Bhattas, but only in small numbers among brahman
ritualists. As Mimamsa does not teach asceticism, it has never had
ascetics associated with it. Mimamsa is a guide to householders of
the twice-born castes.