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THE HERITAGE OF INDIA
, .
P , .,
manors
The Right Reverend V. S. Azariah,
Bishop of Dornakal.
j N Farquhar> M A>> D>Litt. (Oxon.)
Already published.
The Heart of Buddhism. K. J. SAUNDERS, M.A.
Asoka. REV. J. M. MACPHAIL, M.A., M.D.
Indian Painting. PRINCIPAL PERCY BROWN, Calcutta.
Kanarese Literature. REV. E. P. RICE, B.A.
The Sarhkhya System. A. BERRIEDALE KEITH, D.C.L.,
D.Litt.
Psalms of Maratha Saints. NICOL MACNICOL, M.A., D.Litt.
A History of Hindi Literature. REV. F. E. KEAY, M.A.
Hymns of the Tamil Saivite Saints. KINGSBURY and
PHILLIPS.
Subjects proposed and •volumes tinder preparation.
SANSKRIT AND PALI LITERATURE.
Hymns from the Vedas. Prof. A. A. MACDONELL, Oxford.
Anthology of Mahayana Literature. Prof. L. DE LA VALLE
POUSSIN, Ghent.
Selections from the Upanisads. F. J. WESTERN, M.A.,
Delhi.
Scenes from the Ramaya_na._
Selections from the Mahabharata.
THE PHILOSOPHIES.
An Introduction to Hindu Philosophy. J. N. FARQUHAR,
and JOHN McKENZiE, M.A., Bombay.
The Philosophy of the Upanisads.
Sankara's Vedanta. A. K. SHARMA, M.A,, Patiala
Ramanuja's Vedanta.
The Buddhist System.
FINE ART^AND MUSIC.
Indian Architecture. R. L. EWING, B.A., Madras,
Indian Sculpture.
The Minor Arts. Principal PERCY BROWN, Calcutta.
Indian Coins. C. J. BROWN, M.A. (Oxon.).
BIOGRAPHIES OF EMINENT INDIANS.
Gautama Buddha. K. J. SAUNDERS, M.A., Rangoon.
Ramanuja.
Akbar. F. V. SLACK, M.A., Calcutta.
Tulsi Das.
Rabindranath Tagore. E. J. THOMPSON, M.A., Bankura.
VERNACULAR LITERATURE.
The Kurral. H. A. POPLEY, B.A., Erode.
Hymns of the Alvars. J. S. M. HOOPER, M.A., Madras.
Tulsi Das in Miniature. G. J. DANN, M.A., Patna.
Hymns of Bengali Singers. E. J. THOMPSON, M.A., Bankura.
Kanarese Hymns. Miss BUTLER, Bangalore.
HISTORIES OF VERNACULAR LITERATURE.
Bengali. C. S. PATERSON, M.A., Calcutta.
Gujaratl. R. H. Bo YD, M.A., Ahmadabad.
Marathi. NICOL MACNICOL, M.A., D.Litt., Poona.
Tamil. FRANCIS KINGSBURY, B.A., Bangalore.
Telugu. P. CHENCHIAH, M.A., Madras, and RAJA
BHUJANGA RAO, Ellore.
Malayalam. T. K. JOSEPH, B.A., L.T., Trivandrum.
Sinhalese.
Urdu. B. GHOSH AL, M.A., Bhopal.
NOTABLE INDIAN PEOPLES.
The Rajputs.
The Syrian Christians. K. C. MAMMEN MAPILLAI, Alleppey.
The Sikhs.
VARIOUS.
Modern Folk Tales. W. NORMAN BROWN, M.A., Ph.D.,
Philadelphia.
Indian Village Government.
Poems by Indian Women. MRS. N. MACNICOL, Poona.
Classical Sanskrit Literature.
Indian Temple Legends. K. T. PAUL, B.A., Calcutta.
Indian Astronomy and Chronology. DEWAN BAHADUR L. D.
SWAMIKANNU PILLAI, Madras.
EDITORIAL PREFACE
" Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are
true, whatsoever things are honourable, whatso
ever things are just, whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things
are of good report ; if there be any virtue, and
if there be any praise, think on these things."
No section of the population of India can afford to
neglect her ancient heritage. In her literature, philosophy,
art, and regulated life there is much that is worthless, much
also that is distinctly unhealthy; yet the treasures of
knowledge, wisdom, and beauty which they contain are too
precious to be lost. Every citizen of India needs to use
them, if he is to be a cultured modern Indian. This is as
true of the Christian, the Muslim, the Zoroastrian as of the
Hindu. But, while the heritage of India has been largely-
explored by scholars, and the results of their toil are laid
out for us in their books, they cannot be said to be really
available for the ordinary man. The volumes are in most
cases expensive, and are often technical and difficult.
Hence this series of cheap books has been planned by a
group of Christian men, in order that every educated
Indian, whether rich or poor, may be able to find his way
into the treasures of India's past. Many Europeans, both
in India and elsewhere, will doubtless be glad to use the
series.
The utmost care is being taken by the General Editors
in selecting writers, and in passing manuscripts for the
press. To every book two tests are rigidly applied : every
thing must be scholarly, and everything must be sympathetic.
The purpose is to bring the best out of the ancient
treasuries, so that it may be known, enjoyed, and used.
THE M/.^.
KARMA-MiMAMSA
BY
A. BERRIEDALE KEITH, D.C.L., D.LITT.
(of the Inner Temple Barrister-at-Law, Regius Professor of Sanskrit
and Comparative Philology at the University of Edinburgh)
AUTHOR OF "THE SAMKHYA SYSTEM," ETC.
. 3
ASSOCIATION PRESS
5, RUSSELL STREET, CALCUTTA
LONDON: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW YORK, TORONTO, MELBOURNE,
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA AND MADRAS
1921
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE
I. THE DEVELOPMENT AND LITERARY HISTORY OF
THE KARMA-MIMAMSA . . . . . . . . 6
The Origin of the System. — The Mirnamsa Sutra. —
The Vrttikara. — Prabhakara and Kumarila. — Later
Writers. — Other Literary Sources.
II. THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE .. .. .. 17
The Validity of Apprehension. — Mode of Appre
hension of Cognition. — The Forms of Cognition. —
Perception. — Inference. — Comparison. — Presumption.
— Negation. — Scripture and Verbal Testimony.
III. THE WORLD OF REALITY .. .. ..44
The Refutation of Buddhist Nihilism and Idealism.
— The Categories of Prabhakara and Kumarila. —
Substance. — Quality. — Action or Motion. — Generality.
— Inherence. — Similarity. — Cause. — Non-existence.
IV. GOD, THE SOUL, AND MATTER .. .. ..61
The Refutation of the Doctrine of Creation.— The
Doctrine of the Soul. — The Destiny of Man. — The
Purpose of Sacrifice.
V. THE RULES OF RITUAL INTERPRETATION . . 79
The Authority of Scripture. — The Brahmanas as
Vidhi, Arthavada, and Namadheya. — The Mantras.
— Smrtis, Vedangas, Grammar, and Custom. — The
Classes of Actions enjoined. — Originating Injunc
tions. — Injunctions of Application. — Injunctions of
Performance. -Injunctions of Qualification.— Original,
Restrictive, and Limiting Injunctions. — Prohibitions
and Exceptions. — Transfer and Modification of
Details. — Repetition and Option.
VI. THE MIMAMSA AND HINDU LAW.. .. .. 97
The Mimamsa and the Law Schools. — The Inter
pretation of Injunctions. — Religious and Secular
Factors in Ownership. — Inheritance and Partition. —
Adoption and Partnership. — Criminal Law and the
Law of Evidence.
INDEX . ; 108
PRINTED AT
THE WESLEYAN MISSION PRESS,
MYSORE CITY.
I
THE DEVELOPMENT AND LITERARY
HISTORY OF THE KARMA-MIMAMSA
NOT rarely in the Brahmanas, especially in later texts like
the Kausttaki, the term Mimarhsa occurs as the designation
of a discussion on some point of ritual practise. The
sacrifice left innumerable opportunities for divergence
of usage in detail, and the texts decide in favour of one or
the other alternative, on the strength of the reasons- familiar
to the Brahmanas, in special the symbolical significance
attaching to the action recommended. There is a vital
difference between this form of Mimamsa and that of the
classical Karma-Mimarhsa school, in the fact that in the
former the appeal to authority, and the necessity of
reconciling apparent discrepancies of authority, are entirely
lacking. But the tendency to surrender judgment in favour
of tradition may be traced in the care with which in the
Satapatha and the Kausitaki Brahmanas the name of the
teacher is adduced in support of the doctrines expounded ;
in the older style the reasonings stand by themselves,
commended by their intrinsic value.
The process by which the Brahmanas came to be regard
ed as texts of incontrovertible accuracy, and speculation on
the sacrifice ceased to be independent, cannot now be traced in
detail. The account of the sacrifices given in these texts,
supplemented by the collections of Mantras in the Samhitas
of the various schools, would, obviously, never have sufficed
to enable priests to carry out the sacrifices, and there must
have been a full and precise oral tradition regarding the
mode in which the sacrifices, which formed the subjects of
the mystical speculations of the Brahmanas, were to be
performed. This tradition, however, in the course of time
2 THE KARMA-MIMAMSA
seems to have become obscured, just as the tradition of the
interpretation of the Mantras fell into confusion, and in its
place in some degree supervened an attempt, on the ground
of reasoning, to deduce from the Sarhhitas and the Brah
manas, taken together, rules for the regulation of the
performance of the offerings. The difficulties of such a
course were considerable; there are real divergences between
the Samhitas and the Brahmanas, which we may justly
attribute to change of ritual, but which in the opinion of
the priests admitted of other explanations. Thus, in some
cases, the order of the Mantras is patently different from
the order of actions contemplated in the Brahmanas, a
divergence which the new MImamsa decided in favour of
the order of the Mantras on the ground that, as they were
recited in the sacrifice they were more directly connected
with the sacrifice than the Brahmanas, which were not
immediately employed in the offering. With more plausi
bility, the new doctrine held that if a Brahmana mentioned
an action out of its natural order, such as the cooking of the
rice grains before the husking, it was nevertheless to be
assumed that the normal sequence was to be followed.
More legitimately still, the new science devoted itself to such
problems as the determination of the person by whom the
several actions enjoined, without specification of the actor,
fell to be performed; the connection as principal and
subordinate of the many details of the offering ; and the
precise mode of performance of the Vikrtis, or derivative
forms of the main sacrifices, the particulars of which are
seldom adequately indicated in the sacred texts.
The antiquity of the new science is vouched for by the
Dharma Sutras. Apastamba in two passages1 disposes of
contested points by the authority of those who know the
Nyaya, a term which is the early designation of the Karma-
Mimarhsa and persists through its history in its generic
sense of " reasoning," while the Nyaya philosophy proper
borrows it, and applies it more specifically to denote the
syllogism. What is still more convincing is that Apastamba
1 Biihlcr, Sacred Books of the East, II, xxviii, xxix ; XXV,
xlvii, Hi.
DEVELOPMENT AND LITERARY HISTORY 3
uses arguments which are to be found in the Mimamsa
Sutra ; thus he maintains that no text can be inferred from
a custom for which a secular motive is apparent, and that a
revealed text has superior validity to a custom whence a
text might be inferred. The corresponding rules in the
Mimdmsa Sutra (I, 3, 3-4) do not textually agree, and we
may fairly conclude that at this date, probably not later
than the middle of the third century B.C., the Sutra did not
exist in its present form, but it is plain that the science
itself was in full vogue, and a Mimamsnka appears to have
been deemed a necessary member of a Parisad. The
influence of this discipline can plainly be discerned in the
existing Sutra texts; the works of Asvalayana, Sankhayana,
Apastamba, Hiranyakesin, Latyayana, and Drahyayana
have been composed under its influence, and the same con
sideration applies even to texts like those of the Baudhayana
and Manava schools, which show greater affinities to the
Brahmana style. We need not, of course, assume that the
old sacrificial tradition was entirely lost, but we may be
certain that it has been largely transformed in the process
of remodelling.
Simultaneously with the remodelling of the Sutras, there
must have proceeded the definition of the rules of interpre
tation until they were finally codified in the Ml-mamsa
Sutra,1 which passes under the name of Jaimini, but the
details of this process must remain unknown to us. What
is certain is that the Mlmamsd Sutra presupposes a long
history of discussion, and that its aphorisms, which often
assume, without expressing, general rules of interpretation,
deal largely with difficulties affecting individual Vedic
texts, which had long been the subject of dispute.
This characteristic is shown clearly in the mode of
discussion followed in the text; the essential subdivision
is the Adhikarana, which, according to the school, is to
be deemed to fall into five parts; these Madhava reckons
as the subject of investigation (visaya), the doubt
(samsaya) , the first or prima facie view (purvapaksa) , the
1 Edited, Bibliothecalndica, 1873-1889 ; trans, of Adhyayas I-III,
by Gafiganatha Jha, Sacred Books of the Hindus, vol, X,
4 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
answer or demonstrated conclusion (siddhdnta) , and the
relevance of the topic (samgati), but the last head is else
where reckoned as the third, and a more natural division1
omits it, and regards as the fourth and fifth members the
answer (uttarapaksa), and the conclusion (nirnaya). Thus
in the first Sutra of the text there are two Adhikaranas; is
the study of the Veda necessary for the three upper castes,
and is Dharma a proper subject of study ? The latter alone
needs full discussion, the reply to the former being self-
evident. The subject then is formed by the two Vedic pre
cepts, " One should study the Veda," and " One should per
form the final bath after studying the Veda." The doubt is
whether one should, after learning the Vedic text, perform
the bath and end one's studentship, or remain longer with
the teacher to study Dharma. The priina facie view is that
the bath should follow immediately on the learning of the
text, but the reply is that real study of the Veda is not
satisfied by mere reading of the text, and the conclusion,
therefore, is that the final bath is to be postponed for a time
in order that the student may complete his learning of the
text by a study of Dharma. Of all this, however, the Sutra
itself has nothing, consisting merely of the words, " Now,
therefore, an enquiry into Dharma," and, though in some
cases there is more full development of an Adhikarana, it
is to the commentators that we must look for enlightenment
on the exact issues in dispute. It is not, of course, to be
supposed that at any time the Sutra was handed down
without oral explanation, but, as usual, the authentic version
was early obscured.
Of these Adhikaranas there are in the Sutra in Madhava's
reckoning about 915, divided into twelve books with sixty
Padas, the third, sixth, and tenth having eight each in lieu
of the normal four, and 2,652 aphorisms (2,742 in another
reckoning). Jaimini is the chief authority cited, but men
tion is made also of other names, such as those of Badari,
Atreya, and Badarayana, who occur also in the Vedanta
Siitra, and of Labukayana, Aitasayana, etc. Who Jaimini
was we cannot say. A Jaimini is credited with the author-
1 Cowell in Colcbrookc, Essays I, 326,
DEVELOPMENT AND LITERARY HISTORY 5
ship of a Srauta and a Grhya Sutra, and the name occurs
in lists of doubtful authenticity in the Asvalayana and
Sdiikhdyana Grhya Sutras; a Jaiminiya Samhitd and a
Jaiminiya Brdhmana of the Sdma Veda are extant. As
an authority on philosophy Jaimini appears in the
Vedanta Sutra and often in later works,1 but it is significant
that, while it is possible that the Mahdbhdrata recognises
the existence of the Mimamsa it does not refer to Jaimini
as a philosopher, but merely as an ancient sage.2 Neither
Buddhist or Jain literature throws light on his personality
or date, and the period of the Sutra can be determined,
therefore, merely on grounds of comparison of its contents
with those of other works.
It is probable that the Mimdrhsd Sutra is the earliest of
the six Darsanas preserved to us. The Yoga Sutra is not
an early work; it seems to recognise the Vijnanavada school
of Buddhism, which, in all probability, belongs to the
fourth century A.D., and the popular identification of
Patanjali with the author of the Mahdbhdsya is clearly unten
able.3 The lateness of the Sdrhkhya Sutra is admitted,
and the theory that its contents include early matter has
been controverted. The Vaisesika Sutra has no point of
contact with the Mimamsa such as would render any con
clusion possible, but the Nydya Sutra (II, 1,61) is familiar
with the Mimamsa terminology, and it is improbable that,
had the Nydya existed before the Mimdrhsd Siltra took form,
it would have been ignored by the latter as it is. The
relation to the Vedanta Sutra is less clear; the mention
of Jaimini and Badarayana in both texts affords some
ground for the view that the two works were simultaneously
redacted, but this conclusion is by no means assured.
We have no valid reason for assuming that the Sutras were
actually redacted by Jaimini and Badarayana themselves,
1 His death, caused by an elephant, is recorded in Pancatantra
II, 34, but not in the Tantrakhyayika. The name is strange, but is
ignored in Panini and the Mahdbhdsya, which, however, knows of
Mimarhsakas, probably adherents of this school (Indische Studien,
XIII, 455, 466).
* Hopkins, Great Epic of India, p. 97.
8 Sdmkhya System, pp. 56, 57.
6 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
and, unless this is established, the argument for contempor
aneity is invalid. It is true that it is impossible to deduce
from the style of the Mimamsa as Purva-MImamsa a
relation of temporal priority for Jaimini's work; the
Mimamsa is prior to the Vedanta because it deals with the
sacred rites, the knowledge of which, in the view of one
school of Vedanta, is an indispensable preliminary to the
knowledge of the absolute, though Sarhkara declines to
accept this view and insists instead on the diverse character of
the ends of the two disciplines, which renders it impossible
to treat the former as the normal or necessary prelude to the
latter.1 Nonetheless it remains true that we must assume
that the Mimamsa as a science developed before the Vedanta.2
The former was plainly necessitated by the development of
the sacrificial ritual with which it is immediately connected,
and it serves an important practical end; the latter is proof
of the growth of a philosophical spirit, which sought to
comprehend as a whole the extremely varied speculations
which are scattered in the Aranyakas and Upanisads.
While, of course, it is not impossible that the redaction of
the two Sutras was contemporaneous, despite the earlier
development of the Mimamsa, the probability surely lies in
favour of the view that the Mimamsa Sutra was redacted
first and served as a model for the other schools.
Even if this view is accepted, it remains difficult to
assign any definite date to the Sutra. It contains no
certain reference to Buddhist tenets of any kind, for the
term buddha, in I, 2, 33, has not this signification, and we
need not with Kumarila read a reference to Buddhism into
I, 3, 5, and^. The Vedanta Sutra is of uncertain date ; if
we believe Sarhkara, it criticises (II, 2, 28-32) the Vijnana-
vada school of Buddhism, but this doctrine is probably
wrong3 and we need see only a reference to the Sunyavada
of Nagarjuna. The date of this school is uncertain ; if we
accept the opinion that it was not enunciated before
Nagarjuna in such a manner as to invite criticism in the
1 Deussen, Vedanta, ch. I.
2 Thibaut, S.B.E., XXXIV, ix ff .
3 Jacobi, J.A.O.S., XXXI, Iff; Keith, J.R.A.S., 1914, pp.
1091 ff ; see below, pp. 46, 47.
Veddnta Sutra, that work cannot be earlier than the third
century A.D., for Aryadeva, Nagarjuna's contemporary,
refers to the zodiacal signs and the week-days, which were
not known in India until that epoch. But it is possible
that the Sunyavada, which can be recognised in Asvaghosa,
was of older fame than Nagarjuna, though on the whole it is
more likely than not that it was the dialectical ability of
that teacher which made the doctrine the object of Vedantic
confutation. It is, then, a plausible conclusion that the
Mimamsd Sutra does not date after 200 A.D., but that it is
probably not much earlier, since otherwise it would have
been natural to find in the Mahdbhdrata some reference to
it and to its author.
As we have seen, the Sutra must from the first have been
accompanied by a comment, which in course of time was lost
or became defective. The first commentator of whom we
have certain knowledge is a Vrttikara, from whose work a
long extract is made in the Bhdsya of Sabarasvamin on
Mimdrhsd Sutra, I, 1, 5, in which the author attacks and
refutes Buddhist views. If we believe Kumarila, the dis
cussion is directed in part against the Vijnanavada school,
in part against the Sunyavada, but in this case we have
every reason to distrust his assertion, for, plainly by error,
he ascribes the major portion of the discussion to Sabara
svamin, and not to the Vrttikara. It is, therefore, not
improbable that he is also in error in finding any reference
to the Vijnanavada, for the passage seems to deal with one
topic only, and that the Sunyavada. It follows, accordingly,
that the date of the Vrttikara was probably not later than
the fourth century A.D., since, had he lived later, he would
hardly have omitted an explicit discussion of the tenets of
the idealistic school of Buddhism.
The name of the Vrttikara is uncertain. The conjecture1
that he was Bhavadasa, mentioned in one place by Kumarila,
may be dismissed as wholly without support. The current
opinion makes him to be Upavarsa, who, we know from Sarh-
kara (Veddnta Sutra, III, 3, 53) wrote on both the texts. To
this the objection has been brought that in the passage cited
1 Gaftganatha Jh&, trans, of Slokavdrttika, p. 116.
8 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
from the Vrttikara by Sabarasvamin there is a reference to
Upavarsa with the epithet Bhagavat, implying that he was
in the eyes of the Vrttikara an author of venerable authority.
It is probable, however, that the citation from the Vrttikara
is only a resume,1 not a verbatim quotation, and that Sabara-
svamin is responsible for the reference1 to Upavarsa, the
Vrttikara's proper name, and for this view support may be
derived from the mode in which the Vrttikara and Upavarsa
are referred to by Kumarila elsewhere (II, 3, 16). If this
view is rejected, it is possible that he is Bodhayana, who
certainly wrote on the Vedanta Sutra, but this theory is a
bare and unnecessary conjecture, seeing that Bodhayana
nowhere else appears as a Mimamsa authority. Of other,
presumably early, commentators we hear of Bhartrmitra2
and Hari,3 but there is no reason to identify either of these
with the Vrttikara.
The extract from the Vrttikara proves that an im
portant addition has been made to the teaching of the
Mimamsa in the shape of the introduction of discussions
of the validity of knowledge and its diverse forms.
The Sutra itself is content with the denial of the validity
of perception for the purpose of the knowledge of Dharma,
and the exaltation of Vedic injunctions as the source
of the necessary knowledge; under the influence, perhaps,
of the Nyaya the earlier doctrine is now elaborated into
a critical examination of the nature of evidence, its validity,
and the forms of proof. It is not illegitimate to assume
that the Vrttikara e indulged also in metaphysical discus
sions; at any rate Sabarasvamin enters into a long discussion
of the nature of soul, despite his predilection for brevity
in treatment of the Sutra. The Mimamsa therefore by this
time enters into the whole field of philosophy, while
maintaining its primary duty of expounding the rules by
which the ritual can be reconstructed from the Brahmanas
and the Samhitas.
1 In II, 3, 16, he clearly describes the Vrttikara as bhagavdn
dcaryah ; cf. Ill, 1, 6. These passages Jacob! has overlooked.
1 Parthasarathi on Slokavarttika, p. 4 (v. 10) ; he is cited on the
organ of sound, Nydyamanjarl, p. 213.
• Sastradipika, X, 2, 59, 60.
DEVELOPMENT AND LITERARY HISTORY 9
Of Sabarasvamin, whose commentary forms the starting
point for later discussion, we know practically nothing It
is an idle fiction which makes him the father of the mythical
founder of the Vikrama era (57 B.C.}, of Bhartrhari, and
Varahamihira, his true name being Adityadeva, while he
adopted the soubriquet Sabara, when he disguised himself as
a forester to avoid Jain persecution. The form of his
name and his relation to the Vrttikara suggest that 400
A.D. is the earliest date to which he can be assigned; the
later limit is vaguely indicated by his priority to Prabhakara,
Kumarila, and Sarhkara.
With Prabhakara and Kumarila there comes a sharp
divergence in the unity of the teaching of the school, whose
followers henceforth are divided between the adherents of
Prabhakara, or the Guru par excellence, and the supporters
of Kumarila Bhatta. It does not, however, appear that
Prabhakara initiated the views which he became noted for
expounding ; he cites in the Brhatl, his ' great ' exposition
of Sabarasvamin's Bhdsya, the opinions of a Varttikakara
who presumably must be regarded as the true founder of
the school. The Brhatl itself is unfortunately only extant
in imperfect form ;x it was commented on by Salikanatha
in his Rjuvimala, formerly erroneously regarded as simply
a commentary on the Sabarabhdsya, while in his Prakara-
napancikd2 the same author deals with the more important
epistemological and metaphysical views of his teacher. The
Brhatl seems to have passed comparatively early into
oblivion, though a passage from it is cited in the Mitdksard
and its author's views were well known in MImamsa circles.
The relation of Prabhakara and Kumarila is represented
by tradition as those of pupil and teacher ; the tradition is
fairly old, as it occurs in the Sarvasiddhantasamgraha
(I, 18, 19 ; VII, 15) attributed, doubtless wrongly, to
Sarhkara himself. But the discovery of the text of the
1 See Ganganatha Jha, The Prabhakara School of Purva MImamsa
(1911).
2 Ed. Benares, 1903-04 ; the text is defective, and the Prameyapdra-
yana is lacking. He uses Uddyotakara (e.g. p. 44) and Dharmakirti,
and therefore is not before 650-700 A.D., but is probably before Kuma
rila. Prabhakara thus dates about 600-650 A.D.
10 THE KARMA-MfMAMSA
Brhatl has enabled us to correct this error. Prabhakara
follows Sabarasvamin closely ; he does not refute the
opinions of Kumarila ; in one passage (IV, 1, 2), when
he does criticise an opinion of the latter, the form of words
used by him in adducing it differs entirely from those in
which the view of Kumarila is expressed, showing clearly
that he is dealing with some older author, whom Kumarila
has followed. On the other hand, Kumarila frequently
diverges from the views of the Bhasya; he criticises (I,
2, 31 ; 3, 2 ; 4, 1) views which are expressed by Prabha
kara, and asserts independent views. There is a clear
difference of style between the two authors ; Prabhakara
is comparatively simple, vivid and direct like Sabara
svamin; he seldom uses long compounds; he avoids the com
bination of various reasonings in a single clause ; in lieu of
the formal terminology of objection and reply (nanu . . .
ced, na or sydd etat . . . tad ayuktam) he adopts the form
of question and answer, which, however, has the disadvan
tage of leaving at limes the meaning in doubt. In all these
aspects Kumarila shows a richer, more varied, and elaborated
style, which is reminiscent of the Sarirakabhasya of Sarhkara.
Kumarila's great exposition of the Sabarabhasya falls
into three parts, the first, the Slokavdrttika,1 in verse, deals
with Pada I of Adh}aya I of the Bhasya, and is of the
greatest value as an explanation of the metaphysics and
epistemology of his system. The second, the Tantravart-
tika,2 covers the remaining three Padas of Adhyaya I and
the whole of Adhyayas II and III. The third part, the
Tuptlka, consists merely of scattered notes on the last nine
Adhyayas. Each part has been commented on ; the first by
Parthasarathi Misra in his Nydyaratndkara, and by Sucarita
Misra in his Kdsikd; the second by Somesvara, son of
Mahadeva, in his Nydyasudhd or Kanaka; the third by
Venkatesvara Diksita in his Vdrttikdbharana. Kumarila's
date is determinate within definite limits;3 he used the
1 Ed. Benares, 1898-99; trans. Gangiinatha Jha, Bibliothcca
Indica, 1900-8.
2 Ed Benares, 1890; trans. Gahganatha Jha, Bibliotheca Indica,
1903-20.
3 Pathak, J.B.R.A.S. XVIII, 213 ff.
DEVELOPMENT AND LITERARY HISTORY 11
Vdkyapadlya of Bhartrhari; neither Hiuen-Thsang nor
I-tsing mentions him; he was before Samkara; he attacked
the Jain theory of an omniscient being as propounded in the
Apt aim mams a of Samantabhadra, but is not answered by
Akalanka in his Astasati, which comments on the Apta-
mlmdrnsd. On the other hand, he is freely attacked by
Vidyananda and Prabhacandra, who both lived before
838 A.D. Vidyananda assures us, doubtless correctly, that
he criticised the Buddhist Dharmakirti, and Prabhakara, on
the latter point agreeing with the result above arrived from
internal evidence. The upper limit of date is, therefore,
not earlier than 700 A.D. The lower limit depends on his
precise chronological relation to Samkara and the latter's
exact date. Later tradition, the Samkaravijayas of Madhava
and the pseudo-Anandagiri, would make him an older contem
porary, but the interval may have been considerably longer.
Only slightly later than Kumarila was Mandana Misra,
author of the Vidhiviveka, a treatise on the significance of
injunctions, and the Mimdmsanukramani, a summary of
Sabarasvamin's Bhdsya. The tradition of the Samkara
vijayas makes him out^ to be identical with Suresvara, a
pupil of Samkara, but Anandagiri's account insists that he
was also a pupil of Kumarila. The identification with
Suresvara, which might be suspected because of the lateness
and inferior character of the authorities, is to some extent
confirmed by Vidyananda's description1 of Mandana
Misra as Vedantavadin, which could hardly apply to him
unless he were the author of the works ascribed to Suresvara.
His direct connection with Kumarila, however, need not be
insisted upon. His lower limit of date is fixed by the fact
that the famous Vacaspati Misra devoted the Nyayakanikd
to the exposition of his Vidhiviveka,2 and Vacaspati pro
bably lived about 850 A.D. He wrote also the Tattvabindu3
on Kumarila's views.
Of the later writers the most f important is perhaps
Parthasarathi Misra, who wrote the Sdstradipikd* to explain
1 Ibid. p. 228.
1 Ed. Pandit, XXV-XXVIII, 1903-6.
3 Ed. Benares, 1892.
4 Ed. Benares, 1891. He is earlier than Madhava.
12 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
the Sutra; on it commented, in 1543 A.D., Ramakrsna
Bhatta, son of Madhava, in the_ Yuktisnehaprapurani,
Somanatha, son of Sura Bhatta, an Andhra Brahman of the
Nittal family, in^ his Mayukhamalikd, Vaidyanatha (1710
A.D.), Bhatta Sarhkara, Bhatta Dinakara, Kamalakara,
and others. His Tantraratna comments on points in the
last nine Adhyayas of the Sutra and the Bhdsya, while his
Nydyaratnamdla1 is an independent treatise on which Rama-
nuja, apparently the great Vedantist, has written a comment,
the Ndyakaratna.
Much later in date is Khandadeva, who died at Benares
in 1665 A.D. His works, the BhattadipikS, and on a larger
scale the Mtmdmsdkaustubha* deal fully with the^ Sutra;
the former was commented on in 1708 by his pupil Sambhu
Bhatta. Value attaches also to the Mlmdmsdsutradidhiti or
Nydydvalldldhiti of Raghavananda Sarasvati, pupil of
Advaya, pupil of Visvesvara, and to the Mlmdmsanaya-
viveka of Bhavanatha Misra, which deals also with Sabara-
svamin. Yet other commentaries are recorded, including
works by Mahadeva Vedantin, Kamalakara and Vaidya
natha, son of Ramacandra, the Subodhinl3 of Ramesvara
Suri, the Bhdttacintdmani of Visvesvara or Gaga Bhatta, etc.
Apart from the Sutra there was developed a considerable
literature which aims, as did Mandana Misra, at dealing
systematically with the doctrines of the school. First in
importance, perhaps, is the Jaimimyanydyamaldvistara* of
the famous Madhava written in the fourteenth century,
which, however, is merely a summary in verse, with a prose
comment, of the Mlmdmsd Sutra. At the end of the
sixteenth century Appayya Diksita wrote his Vidhirasdyana,5
a disquisition on the nature of injunction, adding himself
a commentary, the Sukhopayojim. This text was refuted
by Gopala Bhatta in his Vidhirasdyanabhusana, and by
Samkara Bhatta in his Vidhirasdyanadusana. The same
author, who was of the same period as Appayya, wrote
1 Ed. Benares, 1900.
1 Ed. Conjeveram, 1902 (I, 2 only). The Dipikd is ed. in the
Bibliotheca Indica.
* Ed. Pandit, XVII-XXI. 4 Ed. London, 1878.
" Ed. Benares 1901.
DEVELOPMENT AND LITERARY HISTORY 13
a commentary on the Sdstradlpikd, and the Mlmdmsdsdra-
samgraha,1 in which he enumerates 1,000 Adhikaranas,
allotting to each a quarter verse. An extended version of
this work forms his Mimamsabalaprakasa? on which there
is a commentary by Kesava, son of Visvanatha. Appayya
himself wrote also the Upakramapardkrama, a treatise on
the comparative importance of the commencement and end
of a continuous Vedic passage.
The most popular introduction to the Mimamsa is pro
bably the Mimdmsdnydyaprakdsa3 of Apadeva, son of
Anantadeva, and pupil of Govinda. His date is determined
by the fact that his son, Anantadeva, wrote his Smrti-
kaustubha under a prince who lived in the middle of the
seventeenth century. Anantadeva commented on his
father's work in the Bhdttdlamkdra, and his brother,
Jivadeva, discussed in the Bhdttabhdskara the divergent
views prevalent in the schools. Even better known,
perhaps, is the Arthasamgraha* of Laugaksi Bhaskara,
which seems to be based in part on the work of Apadeva,
and, if so, must belong to the seventeenth century. This
date would suit adequately the probable period of his
popular Nyaya-Vaisesika treatise, the Tarkakaumiidl.
Another short text is the Mimdmsdparibhdsd5 of Krsna
Diksita, and the Mlmariisdratna of Raghunatha, who uses
the Kdsikd, contains some information of value on the views of
the opposing schools. Narayanatirtha Muni's Bhdttabhdfd-
prakdsa0 is an exposition of the terminology of the Mimamsa,
while Ramakrsna Udlcya Bhattacarya's Adhikaranakau-
mudi7 expounds a selection of interesting Adhikaranas.
Khandadeva's Bhdttarahasya8 deals with the mode of
determining which is the leading word in a text under
discussionL More interesting is the fact that the famous
Vallabha Acarya is credited with a Purvamimdmsdkdrikd,
an epitome in 42 verses of Jaimini's views, written with
reference to the doctrine of faith which Vallabha expounded,
Ed. Benares, 1904. * Ed. Benares, 1902.
Ed. Calcutta, 1901 ; Benares, 1905.
Ed. and trans. Thibaut, Benares, 1882.
Ed. Benares, 1904. • Ed. Benares, 1900.
Ed. Calcutta, 1885. 8 Ed. Conjeveram, 1900,
14 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
and a Jaiminisiitrabhdsya which deals with the first chapter
of the second book of the Sutra. The well-known scholar,
Venkatanatha Vedantacarya, in his Mimdmsdpddukd,1 in
verse, discusses the Adhikaranas in the first chapter of the
first book of the Sutra, and in his Sesvaramlmamsa seeks to
combine the Mimamsa with the Vedanta. Another writer
from southern India, Venkatadhvarin, deals with the threefold
classification of injunctions in his Vidhitrayaparitrdna, while
in his Mimdmsdmakaranda he discusses the authoritative
character of Arthavadas. Narayana of Kerala, the well-known
author of the Ndrdyamya, who flourished at the end of the six
teenth century, gives in the first part of the Mdnameyodaya2
an account of Rumania's views on the nature of proof; he
purposed completing his task by adding an account of the
same author's views on the world of reality, but this part of
his work was never carried out, and was supplied at a later
date by another Narayana, who was patronised by Mana-
deva, king of Sailabdhi; the work is interesting as showing
how far the school of Kumarila went in appropriating the
views of the Nyaya-Vaisesika philosophy.
Of the other systems it is the Nyaya, and later the com
bined school of Nyaya-Vaisesika, which throws the most light
on the Mimamsa. The Nydya Sutra deals critically with
the Mimamsa doctrine of the eternity of the word, and
Kumarila and Prabhakara3 alike appear to have developed
their philosophical tenets under the influence of the contro
versy on logic which took place between the Nyaya school
and the Buddhists, especially Dignaga and Dharmakirti on
the other hand; Kumarila attacked both of these writers
and was clearly aware of the Nydyavdrttika of Uddyotakara,
in which the orthodox Nyaya view was set out in refutation
of Dignaga's onslaughts. On the other hand, the Mimariisa
views are freely disputed in Vacaspati Misra's comment on
Uddyotakara and in Jayanta Bhatta's Nydyamanjari, Varada-
raja's Tdrkikaraksd, and Udayana's works, much of the
Kusumdnjali being expressly devoted to dealing with
Mimamsa criticisms of the doctrine of the creation of the
1 Ed Conjeveram, 1900. » Ed. Trivandrum, 1912.
s Prakaranapancikd, pp. 47, 64, discusses Dharoiaklrti's views of
perception and inference.
DEVELOPMENT AND LITERARY HISTORY 15
world. The Tattvacintdmani of Gangesa repeatedly attacks
the Mlmarhsa views of the nature and validity of proof, and
the controversy is continued in the voluminous literature
based on that important text, and in the short text-books of
the combined school of Nyaya-Vaisesika. In his commentary
on Prasastapada's Bhasya Sridhara, from the point of view
of the Vaisesika deals freely with Mimamsa views; moreover,
the Jain Haribhadra (ninth century) includes in his Saddarsan-
asamuccaya, commented on by Gunaratna, an account of the
Mimamsa, and there are chapters upon it in theSarvasiddh-
dntasamgraha, falsely ascribed to Samkara, and in Madha-
va's Sarvadarsanasamgraha. The former work deals separ
ately with the doctrines of Prabhakara and Kumarila; it
betrays its late character by its attempt to show that Prabha
kara was the pupil of Kumarila, and by converting the doc
trine of Kumarila into a form of the Vedanta. The work of
Madhava gives a long specimen of the conflicting views of
the two schools as to the interpretation of the opening of
the Sutra, and contains an interesting exposition of the
arguments for and against the eternity of the Veda, and the
self-evidence of cognition.
Jayanta Bhatta's work1 is of special interest, as it is the
product of a member of a family skilled in the Mimamsa,
and its author freely attacks Prabhakara and his followers,
and repeatedly cites the Slokavdrttika. The author's grand
father was confirmed in his faith in the efficacy of sacrifice
by obtaining as the result of one offering the village of
Gauramulaka, doubtless from a king of Kashmir, for
Jayanta's great-grandfather, Saktisvamin, was a minister
of Muktapida, better known as Lalitaditya. Incidentally
Jayanta affords a welcome confirmation of the Hate of
Vacaspati Misra, whom he quotes (pp. 120, 312), for,
as Lalitaditya's reign ended about 753 A.D., it is impossible
to place Jayanta later than the second half of the ninth
century, and hence the disputed era of the year 898
given by Vacaspati himself as the date of his Nydyasuci
1 Ed. Benares, 1895. His quotation from Vacaspati on Sutra II, 1,
32, is found at p. 312. His son, Abhinanda, wrote the Kadambarika-
thdsdra and lived c. 900 A.D.; Thomas, Kavindravacanasamuccaya •
p. 30.
16 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
must be taken as falling in the Samvat reckoning as 841
A.D. This date, it may be added, tells^strongly against any
effort to bring down the date of Samkara,1 on whose
Sanrakabhasya Vacaspati wrote the Bhdmati, and the
same conclusion is favoured by the view that Mandana
Misra, on whose work Vacaspati also commented, was a
pupil of Samkara.
Varadaraja also claims, with obvious truth, to have been
an expert in Mimamsa;2 he was evidently familiar with
Salikanatha's work, and his commentator fortunately preserves
for us a fragment of the Frame yap dray ana chapter of the
Prakaranapancikd, no MS. of which has yet been discovered,
which gives an authentic list of Prabhakara's categories.
1 S. V. Venkateswara (J.R.A.S., 1916, pp. 151-62) ignores this
evidence in giving Sarhkara's date as 805-897 A.D. He cannot have
died later than 825 A.D. or so.
a Ed. Benares, 1903, p. 364.
II
THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE
LIKE the Nyaya, the doctrine of Prabhakara and Kuma-
rila accepts a distinction between valid and invalid know
ledge, but the basis of the distinction is different in the two
cases, and the ground on which validity is asserted is also
diverse. To the Mlmamsa apprehension (anubhuti) is
intrinsically valid, while remembrance (smrti) is intrin
sically invalid, since it rests on a previous impression; the
Nyaya equally disregards remembrance, but it does not
accept the intrinsic validity of self-evidence (svatahprd-
mdnya) of apprehension; apprehensions may be valid
(pramd) or invalid (apramd), the proof being given ab
extra. Remembrance both schools distinguish from recogni
tion (pratyabhijnd), which is not regarded as depending
solely on a previous mental impression, and therefore is
exempt from the fatal defect of remembrance.
The intrinsic validity of apprehension is a cardinal
doctrine of the Mlmamsa and Kumarila1 defends it at length
against the obvious objections to which it is exposed. It is
impossible, it is argued, for apprehension to possess the
opposing characteristics of validity and non-validity as part
of its nature; nor can the validity or non-validity of appre
hension depend on the ascertainment of the perfection or
defect of the cause of the apprehension, since this would
imply that, prior to such ascertainment, apprehension was
devoid of character of its own. To assume that some cases
of apprehension are intrinsically valid, and other intrinsi
cally invalid, is open to the objection that the criterion
1 Slokavarttika, I, 1, 2, vv. 21 ff ; Sastradipika, pp. 15, 31;
Mdnameyodaya, pp. 1-4, 74-78; cf . Nydyamanjan, pp. 160-89; Tdrkika-
raksd pp. 19 ff.
18 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
between the two sets of instances can only be supplied by
reference to an external factor, which is fatal to the belief
in intrinsic validity or the reverse. Therefore, the Nyaya
argues, it is best to accept the doctrine that apprehension or
cognition is intrinsically unauthoritative, and its authorita-
tiveness in any special case is derived from the perfection of
the cause of the apprehension. This doctrine, it is pointed
out, explains the case of dream consciousness; it is invalid
because there is no perfection in its cause, while the waking
consciousness may be valid if it is due to a perfect source;
if, however, the source is vitiated, when the sense organs are
defective, the apprehension is doubtful or erroneous, while
in the case of non-apprehension there is no defect in the
cause, but absence of cause.
The reply of Kumarila is that, if apprehension were not
in itself valid, it could not be made so by any external power.
Apprehension needs, indeed, an originating cause, but it
does not depend on any external cause for its power of
ascertaining the true nature of things. The conclusive
argument is that, if the validity of a cognition is deemed
dependent on the perfection of its source, then there must be
another cognition to guarantee the correctness of the source,
and so ad infinitum, and such a process is illegitimate, at
least in the eyes of Kumarila, who does not appreciate the
possibility of regarding truth as a complete system, in which
all parts are dependent on one another, and there is no simple
primary truth. All cases of apprehension, therefore, are
prima facie valid, and, if cognitions are erroneous or
doubtful, that is, due to defects in their causes, while non-
apprehension is due to the absence of any cause, as on the
Nyaya theory, with which Kumarila agrees in this regard.
The recognition of the non-validity of an apprehension
establishes itself most simply when a subsequent cognition
sublates an earlier cognition, for instance, when the erroneous
judgment, "This is silver," is supplanted by the correct
judgment, " This is mother-of-pearl." More indirectly the
former judgment can be sublated by another judg
ment, based on the recognition of the defect of the cause;
thus the proposition, " The shell is yellow," may be sub
lated by the further judgment, " The eye is jaundiced."
19
Normally, however, a judgment is valid, and is accepted as
valid without question; only if, for any reason, such as
distance, doubt-is possible, are further cognitions sought; if
then a sublating cognition is found, and on further investiga
tion it is not sublated either directly or indirectly, then the
falsity of the first cognition appears; if, on the other hand,
the sublating cognition is itself sublated, the validity of the
first cognition is fully established. Thus, in lieu of the
regressus in infinitum of the Nyaya theory, no more than
three or four cognitions are necessary to establish the validity
of any cognition, or, to put it more precisely, to negate the
objections which may be adduced to impair its normal
validity.
Prabhakara1 similarly maintains the validity of all cogni
tions as such, and illustrates, in an interesting manner, the
diverse modes in which apparent non-validity arises. When
mother-of-pearl is mistaken for silver, the error is due to
the fact that the percipient observes in the object presented
to him the qualities common to the shell and the silver, and
omits to notice those which differentiates the two; memory
thus brings back to him the cognition of silver, and this
cognition is itself real, leading no less than the actual
perception of silver to the normal action of seeking
to take up the object. Memory here plays the percipient
false, for it does not present the silver as connected with
something formerly perceived, thus differentiating it
from the object actually before the eyes, and this failure
is due to a certain weakness of the mind. Similarly,
memory is to blame when we mistake one direction
for another; the real direction is not seen, and the wrong
is remembered. In the dream-state the cognitions
which arise are erroneous, in as much as the things seen
seem to be directly apprehended, whereas they are only
remembered. The factor of apprehension on a previous
occasion is lost sight of, thus obliterating the essential
distinction between what is apprehended and what is
remembered. The presentation of impressions in sleep is
1 Prakaranapancika, pp. 32-38 ; Bhandarkar Commemoration
Volume, pp. 167-70.
20 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
due to the operation of the unseen principle, that is the
destiny begotten of man's previous acts, which thus secures
to man pleasure or pain in due course.
In other cases the explanation rests, not on the interven
tion of memory, but on fusion of impressions. Thus the
white shell appears as yellow as a result of jaundice, the
cognition being a blend of the shell perceived without colour,
and the yellowness of the bile in the eye, perceived without its
substratum. So the bilious man feels sugar bitter, because
his taste is a blend of the sugar and bile. The vision of
two moons is due to a lack of co-ordination of the rays of
light which issue from the eyes and bring back the images.
In the case of merely doubtful cognitions the explanation
of their character is that some object is seen as possessed of
a quality which produces two discrepant remembrances;
thus, seen at a distance a tall object may be either a pillar,
or an ascetic buried in meditation and motionless.
As the Mimamsa differs from the Nyaya in its view of
the validity of cognitions, so it differs in its attitude to the
mode in which a cognition itself is apprehended. In the
Nyaya view this is an act of mental perception (manasapraty-
aksa), and the Vijnanavada school of Buddhism holds the
opinion that one cognition is known by another, though,
going further than the Nyaya, it draws the conclusion that, if
the first cognition is to be apprehended by the second, it
must have form, and form therefore does not belong to any
external reality, as the Nyaya holds. The Mimamsa as
early as the Vrttikara1 maintains that in apprehension it is
the object that is perceived, not the cognition (arlhavisaya hi
pratyaksabuddhih, na buddhivisayd}. As expounded by
Prabhakara, consciousness (samvit), which is self-illumined,
is cognised, but not as an object of cognition, but as cogni
tion (samvittayaiva hi samvit samvedyd, na samvedyataya) .
To say that the cognition is unknown is absurd, since the
cognition of things is possible only if the cognition is known.
The mode in which cognition is known is inference; in
inference we grasp the existence of a thing only, not its
1 Mimamsa Sutra, p. 9, 1. 16 ; cf. Prakaranapancika, pp. 56-63 ;
SaddarSanasamuccaya, pp. 289, 290.
THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 21
concrete form; we learn the presence of fire on the mountain
from its smoke, but we do not see the actual form of the
fire. Cognition, therefore, we infer from the fact that we
know things; it, therefore, may be classed as an object of
proof (prameya), since it is arrived at by the use of infer
ence, which is a means of proof (pramana), but it is not an
object of direct apprehension. In Rumania's doctrine1 also
this view appears, though the doctrine of self-illumination is
rejected; the perception of any object does not result in a
further cognition of the perception, but in the direct
apprehension of the object, and every act of perception
involves a relation (sambandha) between the self and the
object; this relation implies action on the part of the self as
agent, and this action constitutes the cognition, which is
inferred from the relationship between the self and the
object.
From this point of view it is possible to understand the
definition of the valid apprehension given by Parthasarathi
Misra as that which, being free from discrepancies, appre
hends things not previously apprehended.2 This definition
does not really derogate from the principle of the self-
evidence of cognitions; the qualification of freedom from
discrepancies merely lays stress on the fact that it is the
absence of a sublating cognition which assures us in case
of question of the validity of a cognition, while the condi
tion that the thing in question should not have been
previously apprehended is not a new factor, but merely a
formal expression of the essential nature of apprehension.
The exact process of cognition as explained in the
Siddhantamukt avail* consists in the production in the
object of the quality of being cognised (jnatata) , and,
however often we cognise the same object, nevertheless in
each instance the quality in question is generated
anew.
The precise character of the doctrine was, it is clear,
largely determined by the desire to avoid the difficulty of
1 Cf. Sastradipikft, p. 37; Manatneyodaya, p. 103 ; TSrkikaraksp,
pp. 39 ff.
3 $5stradipika, p. 28.
'- P. 118 ; cf. Kusumafijali, IV 1.
22 THE KARMA-MIMAMSA
the infinite regress, which seemed to be involved in the
theory that a cognition could only be known through the
instrumentality of another cognition, and perhaps still more
by the aim of avoiding the conclusion, which was derived
from this doctrine by the Idealist school of Buddhism, that
there existed no self, but merely a series of cognitions, held
together by no substantial unity. To the Mimamsa such
a doctrine was naturally anathema, since the essence of the
sacrificial ritual lay in the fact that there was a self who
could profit by the performance of sacrifices, not merely in
this world but after death. It might have been hard to
convince men that sacrifices were worth performing, if the
only reward held out had been success in this life, for facts
would too often have controverted the claim that sacrifices
were availing; when the reward was predicted for the
next world, the issue was removed from empirical verifica
tion. But the denial of the possibility of introspection thus
necessitated was obviously a real difficulty, and rendered the
Mimamsa view less plausible than that of the Nyaya, which
accepted cognition (vyavasaya} and as supervening upon it
consciousness of cognition (amivyavasaya). The dis
advantage of the Nyaya view was that it tended to ignore the
fact, which was strongly emphasised in the Mimamsa, of the
necessary implication of the subject in all cognition. The
distinction between the cognition and the subject, which
possesses it, is illustrated clearly in the case of sleep; in it,
the school holds, there is no cognition normally, and apparently
no cogniser or object of cognition, yet the existence of both,
despite sleep, is proved by the fact of remembrance of
dreams. The knowing subject, therefore, is not, like the
cognition, self-illumined, though as to its exact character
Prabhakara and Kumarila are far from agreed.
Of forms of apprehension or cognition Prabhakara
recognises five: perception, inference, analogy, scripture or
verbal testimony, and presumption; while Kumarila accepts
also non-perception or negation, in accordance with the view
of the Vrttikara, who thus supplements the bare mention of
perception in the Sutra (I, 1, 4), where it is defined as the
contact of the sense organs with the object, which must be
actually present. The analysis of perception given by
THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 23
Prabhakara shows on every hand clear trace of derivation
from the views of the Nyaya and Vaisesika, which again
are ultimately based on popular psychology, such as appears
fitfully in the Upanisads and in Buddhist texts. The
essential feature is contact between the object and the organ
of sense, which is essentially something real; but the unity
of consciousness makes it clear that there must be a further
contact between the organ and the self, whether directly or
mediately. The fact that, despite the presence of objects in
contact with the senses, there may be no cognition of them,
proves that the contact cannot be direct, but must be
mediated by an instrumentality called mind. It is this
which prevents all facts being always and at once present to
the self, and it is this which perceives pleasure and pain and
brings them home to the self. It is through the mind also
that the self experiences desire, aversion, and volition. But
mind has no qualities, such as colour, smell or taste, and
therefore for the cognition of colour it needs the aid of an
organ which possesses that quality, namely, the eye, which to
possess colour as its distinctive quality must be possessed of
light; similarly there must be the nose, composed of earth,
for the cognition of smell ; the tongue, composed of water, for
the cognition of savours; the skin, the crgan of air, for the
cognition of touch; and the ear, consisting of the ether, for
the cognition of sound; the organs themselves being imper
ceptible.
This doctrine, of course, rests on metaphysical grounds
and assumes in its treatment of the organs the doctrine that
like must be known by like. The deduction of the exis
tence and atomic size of mind by Prabhakara rests on the
basis of a doctrine of causation1 which is different from,
but allied to, that of the Nyaya, and which is applied to
explain the partial and evanescent characteristics of our
experience. Causes are either material or immaterial, the
latter head covering all the circumstances which, in conjunc
tion with a material cause, result in an effect. The
immaterial or non-inherent cause may subsist either in the
1 Prakaranapancikd, pp. 52-54 ; cf. Slokavdrttika, I, 1, 4, vv.
157 ff.
24 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
material or inherent cause, or in the material cause of that
cause; thus, when by contact with the fire smell is generated
in a substance, the immaterial cause is the contact with the
fire, and the contact subsists in the substance itself, while,
in the case of the colour of a mat, the colours of the yarns
which cause the colour of the mat subsist in the yarns,
which are the material cause of the mat. In the case of
perception the soul is the material cause, and, as the soul is
uncaused, the immaterial cause must subsist in it; in a
substance, like the soul, only a quality can subsist, and
therefore the immaterial cause of perception must be a
quality of the soul, and this can only be some contact with an
independent substance, just as the colour of the earth atom
is produced by contact with fire. This independent sub
stance cannot be all-pervading like space or time, contact
with which is from their nature as all-pervading out of the
question; it must therefore be atomic, and the only substance
which fulfils the necessary condition is mind, residing in the
body ensouled by the self, and possessing the power of
swift motion, by which it can form a rapid series of contacts,
giving the appearance of simultaneity in our mental life.
The deduction is ingenious, but unconvincing; it is significant
of the consciousness of the gap between the self and the body,
which it seeks to bridge by the mediation of the atomic and
therefore corporeal, but yet eternal substance, mind.
Of greater philosophical significance is the attitude of
the school to the vexed question of the nature of perception
as determinate or indeterminate (savikalpaka or nirvikal-
paka). The Nydya Sutra (I, 1, 4) poses the problem in
its famous definition of perception as knowledge produced
by the contact of the sense organ and the object, consist
ing of a determination which does not require definition by
name (avyapadesya} and is not discrepant (avyabhicari).
The precise of this declaration is far from certain, as the
ambiguities of the commentors, Vatsyayana, Uddyotakara,
and Vacaspati Misra, clearly show, but Dignaga and
Dharmakirti developed a perfectly definite theory - in
which a clear distinction was drawn between the element
of sense in perception and the function of imagination.
In the narrowest sense perception is without imagination
THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 25
and is unerring(kalpandpodham abhrantam), but this merely
gives us a momentary contact with something real, but
utterly inexpressible, the momentary unit of experience.
All our knowledge is based on this contact, but its content is
supplied by the imagination (vikalpa), acting by rules which
it itself imposes, a conception which has obvious analogues
with the Kantian doctrine of perception.1 Dignaga's view did
not prevail, but the problem had been brought by his efforts
into clear light, and the later Nyaya seeks in various ways
to explain the mutual relations of the indeterminate and
determinate forms of perception. Kumarila2 happily ex
presses the primitive form of perception as bare observation
(dlocana) pertaining to the object pure and simple, and
resembling the cognitions that a newborn child has of its
environment. Prabhakara's doctrine3 is that the indeterminate
perception apprehends both the class character and the
specific individuality of the object, but, inasmuch as neither
class character, nor individuality can be fully realised save by
comparison, the first apprehension, since it is made without
such comparison, is indeterminate in character. Deter
minate perception arises when the self determines the
perception by recalling both these things which it resembles
and those from which it differs, thus recognising both its
class character and its specific individuality. The part thus
played by memory in the determinate perception suggests
that it must be deemed as invalid, since the theory of error
adopted by Prabhakara finds the source of mistake con
stantly in the intervention of memory. But Prabhakara
does not accept this objection as applicable to his own view
of perception, and it may be argued that the action of
memory in this case does not apply to the perception, but to
the things which agree with, or differ from, the object
perceived. There does not appear to be any very real
difference between the view of Prabhakara and that of
1 T. von Stcherbatskoi, Museon, 1904, pp. 129 ff ; Keith, Logic
and Atomism, pt. II, ch. ii ; SaddarSanasamuccaya, pp. 33-41.
2 Slokavartti-ka, I, 1, 4, vv. Ill ff ; Manameyodaya, pp. 8-10.
The determinate form adds specification as substance, class, quality,
motion, or name ; cf. Nyayamaiijarl, pp. 93-96.
3 Prakaranapancika, pp. 54-56.
26 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
Kumarila, though their verbal expression differs ; Kumarila
holds that in cognition in the form of indeterminate perception
neither the genus nor the differentia is presented to conscious
ness, and that all that is present is the individual in which both
these characteristics subsist. Like Prabhakara, he holds
that determinate perception is no less valid than indeterminate
perception, since it merely makes explicit what is implicit in
the indeterminate form.
The views of the school are best understood when
brought into contact with the metaphysical doctrine to
which they correspond. The essence of that doctrine
accepts generality as a real existence which is perceptible
as much as individual things, and in the simplest form of
perception, therefore, the two aspects of reality are equally
present.
The objects of perception include, besides generalities,
substances, qualities, and, in the view of Kumarila, but not
of Prabhakara, motion. The Nyaya holds that there are
six forms of contact in perception; substance is perceived
by conjunction; qualities by their inherence in what is in
conjunction, and so also the generality of substance ;
generality of quality by inherence in that which inheres
in that which is in conjunction ; sound as a quality of
ether, a portion of which forms the organ of hearing, is
perceived by inherence, and its generality by inherence in
that which inheres, while negation and inherence itself
are perceived by a peculiar and artificial variety of
contact, styled the relation of qualification and qualified.
Prabhakara, though he accepts the doctrine of inherence,
denies genus to quality, motion, and sound, and so contents
himself with recognising the first, second, and fourth
forms of contact as valid, and with pointing out that
to perceive qualities, there is requisite the contact of the
substance and the organs, of the organs and the qualities,
of the organs and mind, and of mind and the self. Sub
stance and qualities, he holds, may be perceived apart. In
Rumania's school, however, which denies inherence, the
contacts are reduced to simple conjunction, and identity
with what is in conjunction (samyuktatddatmya), the second
covering perception of generality of substance, quality and
THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 27
motion, while the generalities of these two can be perceived
by a relationship of identity with that which is identical
with that which is in conjunction.
A further technicality, also found in the Nyaya, is the
discussion of the exact nature of the means of proof and its
result. If the term Pramana is understood as " means of
proof," then perception denotes one or other of the contacts
between object and organ, organ and mind, mind and soul,
each of which is essential to the result (phala) , in this case
the mental percept. If, however, Pramana denotes the
cognition itself, then perception signifies the mental
percept, and its result is the attitude of acceptance, rejection,
or indifference of the subject to the object presented to him
in the cognition.
Inference in the view of the Vrttikara1 is the apprehen
sion of a thing not before the subject, by reason of the
perception of some other thing, between which and the first
object we know an invariable connection to exist. The
relation, according to Prabhakara, must be both general and
constant; examples are the relation between the class and
the individuals; substance and quality; the qualities of the
same substance; or cause and effect. Smoke stands in an
invariable relation to fire, but not vice versa, for on the
Indian view glowing iron emits no smoke. Even in
dividual events may thus be related in Rumania's view;
thus the sight of the constellation Krttika suggests the
proximity of Rohini. How, then, is this relation to be
recognised? The Nyaya view, when it realised the question
as a result of the introduction by Dignaga and, following
him, Prasastapada of the conception of a universal relation
ship (vyapti) in lieu of mere reasoning by analogy, found
refuge in the development of a transcendental perception
(alaukika pratyaksa2), by which in perceiving, for example,
fire and smoke, the percipient recognised not merely the
1 Mimdmsd Sutra, p. 10; Prakaranapancikd, pp. 64-87; Sloka-
vdrttika, pp. 345-405 ; Mdnameyodaya, pp. 11-46; Nydyamanjarl, pp.
109-41 ; Logic and Atomism, pt. II, ch. iii.
2 The Mimarhsa rejects wholly the perception of Yogins, which
is the precursor of this idea in the early Nyaya ; cf Nydyamanjarl,
pp. 93 ff.
28 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
connection of the individual fire and smoke perceived by
him, but that of fire and smoke in their general aspect.
Prabhakara, however, does not recognise this view, the
elaboration of which is characteristic of a later epoch.
He denies that sense perception can give the knowledge
of a universal connection, since it deals only with
particular times and places; he also rejects the view
that the connection can rest on inference or presump
tion, since obviously thus there would be a regressus in
infinitum; nor will he accept the view that it is due to
mental activity only, as suggested by the doctrine of Dignaga,
since if the mind had this power, why is man not omnis
cient ? His own view is that fire and smoke are perceived by
sense as in relation to each other, as qualified by certain
conditions of place and time. By repeated experience the
impression is gained that, while the presence of smoke is
always accompanied by the presence of fire, the reverse
relation does not hold, but is qualified always, unlike the
former, by special conditions of place and time. Hence
emerges the recognition of the permanent relation of smoke
and fire, so that the sight of smoke immediately produces
the conception of fire. He admits that we do not by
inference arrive at any knowledge which we had not before,
but he does not admit that this is any defect to the inferen
tial process, which does not involve novelty of result. The
school of Kumarila, however, in accordance with its defini
tion of apprehension as involving knowledge of something
not previously apprehended, points out, with perfect truth,
that the actual inference gives us much more than the mere
knowledge of the connection of smoke and fire, which is
already known; it enables us to infer the presence, at a
particular time and place beyond our vision, of the existence
of fire as result of the perception of smoke. Cidananda1
recognises also the part played by the reductio ad absurdum
in arriving at the knowledge of the universal connection.
The relationship, however, which affords the basis of
inference, need not refer merely to things which fall within
the limits of perception (drstasvalaksana); matters which
1 Manamcyodaya, p. 15,
THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 29
are supersensuous (adrstasvalaksana) may equally be in
ferred; thus Prabhakara deduces from the general principle
of the relation of cause and effect the existence of the
capacity, e.g. of fire to burn. In the Vrttikara the distinc
tion appears as pratyaksato drstasambandha and samanyato
-drstasambandha, terminology reminiscent at once of the
Nyaya Sutra and of Prasastapada; the latter is illustrated
by the inference to the sun's movement from the observation
of a man's change of place as following on movement.
Following Dignaga and Prasastapada, but in disagree
ment with the orthodox commentators on the Nyaya Sutra,
the Mlmamsa distinguishes between the inference for oneself,
which is the true logical process, and that for another, which
is in reality enunciation for another person of the process of
reasoning, which leads to his drawing the conclusion already
arrived at by the first person. In inference for one's self
the process is that something is perceived, and recognised as
invariably connected with something else, which thus is
recalled to the mind; in inference for another a formal
order of statement is usually adopted. First the proposition
to be established is enunciated, e.g. " The mountain is
fiery," the enunciation serving to bring before the mind any
contrary judgment which might sublate it. Then the
ground for the conclusion thus set out is given in the form
of a general rule, supported by a corroborative instance, e.g.
" Where there is smoke, there is fire, as in a kitchen."
Finally, the necessary link between the conclusion and the
general principle is supplied by the statement that the
middle term exists in the subject, e.g. " The mountain is
smoking." The order of the propositions is not regarded
as of importance by Prabhakara or the other members of the
school, who agree in rejecting the more complicated scheme
of the Nyaya in which, with a certain redundancy due to its
origin in dialectic, the argument is expounded in the five
propositions, e.g. "The mountain is fiery; Because it is
smoking; Where there is smoke there is fire, as in a
kitchen; And this (mountain) is so (possessed of smoke
with which fire is invariably concomitant) ; Therefore is it
thus (fiery)." The omission of the last two members is no
material injury to the scheme, while Buddhist logicians
30 THE KARMA-MIMAMSA
reduce the scheme to two members only. The retention of
the example is due to the origin of inference as a process of
reasoning by simple analogy; even when the necessity of a
universal connection was asserted by Dignaga and adopted
by Prasastapada and his followers, the example was
religiously attained, and it is not until the latest days of the
Nyaya that we find Laugaksi Bhaskara declaring that the
example is a mere superfluity. But Prabhakara and the
school of Kumarila are agreed in insisting on the use of
positive instances only, rejecting the process of argument
from such a general proposition as, " Where there is no fire,
there there is no smoke, as in a lake," though Kumarila
himself recognises its utility, though not its necessity, or, as
in the Buddhist view, sole validity.
In the case of inference also there arises the problem,
already seen in regard to perception, of the exact force of
the term Anumana and the corresponding result. If
Anumana is used as equivalent to " Inferential Cognition,"
which is more precisely designated Anumiti, then the fruit
or result is the attitude of acceptance, rejection or indiffer
ence assumed by the knowing subject to the inferred result.
If, however, Anumana is referred to the means by which
the cognition is attained, there is a divergence of view as to
the exact process to which the name should be applied.
The most immediate cause of inference is the perception of
the middle term or minor proposition, e.g. "The mountain
is smoking," but a more scientific Nyaya view accepts as
the true Anumana the whole mental process, including the
consciousness of the relation between the middle and the
major terms, through which the major term comes to be pre
dicated of the minor term, e.g. fire of the mountain. The
result in either case is the inferential cognition itself.
The doctrine of fallacies is deduced both by Prabhakara
and by Kumarila from the definition given by the Vrttikara
of the nature of inference. Thus Prabhakara holds that the
condition, that the relation between the two terms whence
the inference is deduced, must be previously known, precludes
all those cases styled in logic cases of the too restricted middle
(asddhdrana) , where the middle term, which it is proposed
to use as a basis of proof, is connected with the subject
THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 31
of the inference alone, thus permitting no further
conclusion. Earth, for example, has odour, but nothing
further can be derived from this unique relationship.
Again the relation must be universally valid, a rule
which excludes the too general middle (sddhdrana).
It is impossible to prove that sound is eternal because
it can be known, since many things can be known and
yet are not eternal. The necessity of some relation
existing excludes the variety of middle term known as
annulled (bddhita); to prove sound eternal because it is a
product is impossible, since the character of being a product
is flatly inconsistent with eternity. Finally, the necessity,
that the middle term should be perceived as the basis of the
attribution of the major to the minor, excludes the variety
of middle term known as unreal (asiddha); thus the per
ception by the Buddha of righteousness and unrighteousness
on the ground of his omniscience is an illegitimate argu
ment, since the omniscience of the Buddha has never been
perceived. No other form of fallacy of the middle is
accepted by Prabhakara ; he rejects the Nyaya view of the
fallacy of the counter-balanced middle (satpratipaksa);
which balances against the argument, e.g. of the impercep-
tibility of air because of its lack of colour, the argument of
its perceptibility because of its tangibility. Prabhakara's
argument is that it is not possible for contradictory predi
cates, such as lack of colour and tangibility, are thus
assumed to be, to exist in respect of one subject; hence one
of the two alleged inferences is wholly invalid, and there is
no true counterbalancing. He holds that really contradic
tory inferences are possible only of some subject whose
nature is unknown, in which case, however, in the absence
of the essential known relation, no true inference is attain
able.
The views of Kumarila do not differ materially from
those of Prabhakara ; he classifies the too restricted and
the too general fallacies under the head of doubtful
(anaikdntika) , and adds as a third class the case of con
flicting inferences, which he accepts, contrary to the views of
Prabhakara. Of the unreal (asiddha) and the contra
dictory types of fallacy he gives various sub-divisions. In
32 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
this and in his elaborate examination of the generality
(samanya), which lies at the basis of inference, he shows
plainly his close relation to the Nyaya and his polemic
against the Buddhist views. In accord with the older view
accepted in Buddhist logic, Prabhakara recognises not
merely fallacies of the ground (hetu), but also of the minor
(paksa), the example (drstdnta), and even of the proposi
tion (pratijna), which in the Nyaya view are all reduced
to special cases of fallacies of the ground.
Analogy or comparison is accepted by both schools of
MImamsa with the Vrttikara,1 but their view of the exact
nature of this form of proof differs from that of the Nyaya
generally, which accepts analogy as a distinct form of proof.
In the Nyaya view the process results in the cognition
that an object, hitherto unknown, when brought within
the range of perception, is recognised, by reason of its
similarity to something already known, to be the object
designated by a name communicated by some person of
experience. Thus a man who has never seen a buffalo
in his life is informed by a forester that the buffalo is like
the cow ; on entering the waste he sees an animal similar
in appearance to the cow, and formulates the judgment,
" This thing is a buffalo." The precise force of the judg
ment is disputed in the school, but the best opinion is that
it applies not merely to the single animal seen, but that the
precipient acquires a correct apprehension of the specific
nature of the whole class buffalo. Thus, as Udayana2 says,
the effect of this means of proof is to give a clear under
standing of the meaning of a word, though he rejects the
view, held by Bhasarvajfia3 and his followers in the Nyaya
school, that analogy can be reduced to a particular instance
of verbal testimony (sabda), as well as that of the
Vaisesika, which reduces analogy to inference. The
Mimamsa view of the analogical cognition is that it consists
1 P. 10; Prakaranapancikd, pp. 110-12 ; Slokavarttika , pp. 433-
50; Mdnameyodaya, pp. 47-51 ; Saddarfanasamuccaya, pp. 292, 293.
2 KusumdnjaH, III, 8-12 ; Nydyamanjari, pp. 141-49 ; Tdrki-
karaksd, pp. 84-93.
* Nydyasdra, pp. 30, 31. The Jain view (SaddarSanasamuccaya,
pp. 205, 206) reduces it to recognition, a form of Parok^a.
THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 33
in the recognition in an object not presented to the senses of
similarity to an object which is actually perceived. Thus, in
the instance taken above, the judgment arrived at is, " The
cow which I saw in the city is similar to the animal1 I now
see in the forest." Both schools agree in this view, though
Prabhakara regards similarity as constituting a distinct
metaphysical category, a position denied by the school of
Kumarila, who treat it as a quality arising from the fact
that more than one object possesses the same set of qualities.
The separate character of analogy as a means of proof is
deduced by distinguishing it from the other means which it
resembles. Thus it is not perception, since the cow is not
perceived at the time the judgment is formulated; it is not
verbal testimony, for it involves only the perception of simi
larity; it is not inference, as the mental process is quite
different; nor is it mere memory, for the similarity is not
remembered. The Nyaya view is declared erroneous; the
assertion that the buffalo is like the cow cannot be assumed
as a basis for the conclusion, since, as a mere human
utterance, it may be untrustworthy; the cognition of the
buffalo and its similarity to the cow is pure perception; the
conclusion that the animal seen is what is denoted by the
word " buffalo " is merely inference, so that, if the Nyaya
view is adopted, there is no real independent form of proof
called analogy (upamdna), or true analogical judgment
(upatniti). While the polemic against the Nyaya is not
unsuccessful, the discussion makes it clear that there is no
real separate sphere for analogy as a means of proof.
Unlike the Nyaya, both schools of Mimamsa accept, with
the Vrttikara, presumption (arthdpatti) as a separate means
of proof.2 But Prabhakara's analysis of this form of
demonstration differs radically from that of Kumarila. Pre
sumption in his view arises when it is necessary to assume
some fact in order to avoid inconsistency in respect of some
thing which is actually perceived. Thus, if we know that a
1 For " the buffalo " ; the Mimamsa view does not recognise the
previous information as to the likeness of the cow and buffalo.
2 Mimdmsd Sutra, p. 10; Prakaranapancika, pp. 11318;
Slokavdrttika, pp. 450-72 ; Manameyodaya, pp. 51-57; cf. Nyayaman-
jari, pp. 36-48; SaddarSanasamuccaya, pp, 293-95.
3
34 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
man who is alive is not in his house, we must assume that
he has gone out, in order to make our thinking consistent
with our perception. To give rise to presumption there
must, Prabhakara holds, be doubt, which the presumption
removes, and this element serves to distinguish presumption
from inference, since inference can only begin when a certain
fact, e.g. the existence of smoke, is known with perfect
certainty. On the other hand. Rumania's view is that pre
sumption is impossible, if the original fact were in doubt;
it is only because the absence of the man from his house is
for certain known that it can come into operation; the origin
of presumption lies rather in the apparent inconsistency of
two equally certain facts, in this case, the man's absence
and his being alive, which leads to the enunciation of a
presumption to reconcile the apparent discrepancy, and it
is this reconciliation of apparent discrepancies which
marks out presumption from inference. The Nyaya on the
contrary finds place for presumption under the purely-
negative (kevalavyatirekin) form of inference, in which it
is impossible to adduce a positive instance of the general
rule, but the Mimamsa could not accept this view since it
declined to regard the use of the negative form in inference
as satisfactory.
Unlike the Nyaya the Vrttikara1 accepts non-existence
(abhava), or, as it is also termed, non-apprehension
(anupalabdhi) , as a separate means of proof. The argu
ment in favour of this view adopted by Kumarila is that
the absence of any thing, e.g. of a jar on a particular spot
of ground, cannot be the object of direct perception, which
admittedly, according to the definition of the Mimamsa
Sutra, requires a present contact with the organs of sense,
nor can it be arrived at by inference, analogy, presumption
or verbal testimony. It can only arise into an object of
knowledge through the fact that none of the normal methods
of cognition can come into operation, and this peculiarity
distinguishes it from any of these means. Prabhakara,
1 P. 10; Prakaranapancika, pp. 118-25 ; Slokavarttika, pp. 473-
92 ; Manameyodaya, pp. 58-62, 114-18 ; cf. Nyayamaiijari, pp. 49-54 ;
§addarSanasamuccaya, pp. 295-98; it is refuted from the Jain stand
point, ibid. pp. 206-7,
THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 35
with the Nyaya and Vaisesika, declines to accept non-
apprehension as a distinct means of proof. When we say,
" The jar is not on the ground," all that we mean is that,
if the jar were on the ground, we would perceive it there,
but that as a matter of fact we see the ground alone. The
seeing of the ground is mere perception, and the further
statement is merely a qualification of what is perceived in
terms of something which, formerly seen along with it, is
not now present. In this there is no separate mental
process leading to proof. The Nyaya also escapes the
difficulty by adopting a peculiar doctrine of its own, under
which non-existence, regarded as a positive entity, is
perceived by a peculiar mode of contact known as the
relation of qualifier and qualified.
Whether, however, four, with Prabhakara, or, with the
Vrttikara and Kumarila, five means of proof other than
verbal testimony or scripture are reckoned, all these means
of proof are subject to the defect that they do not avail to
determine the nature of Dharma, man's duty and righteous
ness. This is established by the Sutra (I, 1, 4) for the
case of perception; that means of proof deals only with
existing things which can be brought into contact with the
organs of sense, but duty is a thing which is not already
existing, but needs man's action to bring it to fruition, and
duty is not tangible so as to be able to come into contact
with the organs. Inference, analogy, presumption, and
non-apprehension, all have relation to perception, and for
that reason are vitiated by the defects of the latter, as we
gather from the Vrttikara, who thus supplements Jaimini.
On the other hand, Jaimini declares that the relation of the
word to its meaning is natural and eternal, and Vedic injunc
tions are, therefore, the source of knowledge of duty, which
is something not open to ordinary means of apprehension.
Such injunctions are authoritative, according to Badarayana
as cited in the Mlmdmsd Sutra, because of their independ
ence. In the definition of the Vrttikara1 scriptural cognition
(sastra) is the cognition of some thing, which is not percept-
1 P. 10 ; Prakaranapancika, pp. 87-110, 131-40, 161-70; S.oka-
varttika, pp. 405-33, 498 ff, 728 ff ; Mtnameyodaya, pp. 40-47; cf.
Nyayamanjari, pp, 150 ff, 205 ff.
36 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
ible, through the instrumentality of intelligible sounds, that
is words, whose meaning is known. The further analysis
of Prabhakara shows that each word is composed of letters
which are severally apprehended, impressions of the earlier
letters blending with that produced by the cognition of the
last letter to bring about the idea of the whole word, which
alone has the power to bring about the comprehension of a
single definite meaning. The letters, then, are the means of
verbal cognition, since it is they which by combination
compose the word and bring about the comprehension of its
meaning. With Rumania Prabhakara agrees in disregard
ing the grammatical school's doctrine of Sphota, an entity
which is invented to meet the difficulty felt by the grammar
ians as to the possibility of any combination of impressions
from individual letters producing the unity, which enables
us to comprehend the meaning of a word, and in this view
the Vedanta, Nyaya, Vaisesika and Samkhya are at one with
the Mlmamsa, leaving the Yoga only to support the doctrine
of the grammarians.1
The meaning of words is declared by Jaimini to be
natural (autpattika), and Prabhakara insists on the fact that
words cannot be supposed to owe their meanings to conven
tion, whether human or divine. The view of the school in
this regard can hardly be regarded as anything else than an
attempt to bring the doctrine of verbal testimony into har
mony with their traditional beliefs in the nature in the Veda,
which doubtless long preceded their speculations on the
nature of the relation of word and meaning. The Nyaya
view, that meanings were given to words by a convention due
to the action of God, offended the Mimarhsa belief that the
Veda had no creator, and that no God, as understood by the
Nyaya, existed. The alternative of human convention con
tradicted flatly the Mimarhsa belief that the essential function
of the Veda was to lay down injunctions for the performance
of actions, whence arose an invisible potency (apurva) leading
to a desirable end, and that this potency was a thing of
1 Cf. Max Miiller, Six Systems, pp. 527-44 ; a full refutation of the
doctrine of Bhartrhari that Sabda is the source of the world and is the
lower form of the absolute, Brahman, is given in Nyayamanjan, pp.
531-36; cf. SarvadarSanasamgraha, ch, xrii,
THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 37
which no person, save through the Veda, could have any
knowledge. The Nyaya argument in favour of convention,
derived from the case of proper names, is met by the
admission that in the case of such names convention
is active, but that common names stand on a different footing.
In the former case, we know that the persons or things
so called have a beginning in time, and that some person
must have applied the names to them; in the case of
common names we have no warrant for finding a begin
ning in time for either the things or the words. There
has been no beginning of the world or of men, and
they must have from the first talked of the things of the
world, just as in actual life it is from observing the conver
sation of his elders, or by their instruction, that a youth
learns the meanings of words. What is still more conclusive
evidence is that, unless we recognised, as we do, that words
possess of their own nature meanings, we could never form
the conception of conventional meanings, which is a later
development.
The eternity of the word is established formally and at
length by Jaimini in a systematic refutation (I, l,6-23)of the
objections directed against the doctrine by the Nyaya school
in particular. The Nyaya1 holds that the eternity of the
word is precluded by the fact that it is perceptible only
after effort; that it is evanescent; that in common parlance
men talk of producing a sound, just as they speak of produc
ing any ordinary article; that the same word is pronounced
by many people and in many places; that words have
changes in form, such as dadhy atra for dadhi; and that,
when uttered by many people, the volume of sound is
increased. The reply of Jaimini insists that the apparent
production of sound, regarded by the Nyaya as a creation,
is only a manifestation of a pre-existing entity, a fact in
harmony with the disappearance of words on the cessation of
the manifestation, while products proper remain in being.
The analogy of the sun refutes the argument from
simultaneity of perception by many persons; the change to
1 The Sutra (II, 2, 23-59) deals with the topic, but in such a way
as to ghow in all likelihood posteriority to the Mim&msa Sutra.
38 THE KARMA-MIMAMSA
dadhy atra is not a modification of the letter i, but the
substitution of a quite different form; increase of magnitude
refers to the tone, not to the word itself. Positive argu
ments for the eternity of the word are not lacking. If it were
not so, it would fail in its purpose, the conveying of a
meaning to another. Again, we do find in point of fact that
men recognise words as being the same when uttered on
diverse occasions by diverse people. Language supports the
MImarhsa case; when a word is repeated, we talk of ten
repetitions of the word, not of ten words. Moreover, no
cause for the destruction of words is adduced, and in non-
eternal things causes of destruction are always to be found.
Finally, there is Vedic authority for the doctrine and no
valid counter authority.
The word then exists ever, but only from time to time
by effort on the part of some being is it made manifest to
us. But effort is not enough; the deaf do not hear, and the
effort must be supported by a suitable organ which aids in
the cognition of the word. Through the effort on the part of
the speaker, the air from his lungs rises upwards and comes
into contact with the vocal chords, by which it is modified
in character. Passing, then, out from the mouth, it reaches
the ears of those near enough to be affected, produces in
their ears a change favourable to audition, and passes out,
bringing to a close the audition. The ear cavity contains a
layer of air, upon which the air current issuing from the
speaker's mouth impinges, producing the condition on which
audition supervenes. Thus the MImamsa rejects the primi
tive conception under which, as light from the eye travels to
its object and brings back vision, so the sound travels in
some form to the source of the sound, as held by the Jains,
and the Samkhya view that the sense of hearing, as all-
pervading, reaches the place of the sound. It also rejects
the Buddhist view that actual contact is unnecessary for
hearing, and the Nyaya-Vaisesika doctrine of propagation
of sound on the analogy of waves, or the filaments of the
Kadamba flower, in the ether until it reaches the ether
enclosed in the ear cavity, which, on that view, constitutes
the organ of hearing. To this opinion Kumarila objects
that, the ether being one and indivisible, if one ear is
THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 39
affected, all ears should equally be affected, and every sound
be heard by every one; or, again, if one man is deaf,
everyone should no less be deaf. The Mimamsa evades
this objection by the doctrine that the ear cavity contains
air, and that it differs in size and shape from man to man.
A further objection to the wave theory is also based on the
fact that sounds travelling with the wind are heard at
further distances than sounds travelling against the wind,
which is inexplicable if the propagation of waves takes
place in the ether, which, of course, is unaffected by wind.
The essential character of the word is, in the view of
Jaimini, not mere denotation, but injunction, a view which
clearly stands in close relation to the doctrine that the
meaning of words is largely learned by the young from the
observation of intercourse among the old ; one addresses the
other, and the other acts as a result; one says, gam dnaya,
the other brings the cow. Hence, as against the Vedanta, it
is denied that the essence of Vedic texts lies in the making
manifest of the sole existent Brahman, and asserted that,
even when this seems to be the case, the real import of the
text is an injunction to meditate on the Brahman. From
this view Prabhakara proceeds to develop a conclusion,
which is in harmony with the view of Sabarasvamin, that
words themselves have no meaning, and obtain it only in
sentences, properly injunctive clauses; gam by itself is
nothing, but attains meaning when conjoined with anaya,
the whole then signifying generically the genus cow as con
nected with bringing. This view in the school obtains the
name of the theory of signification in syntactical combination
(anvitabhidhdna) , in opposition to the view of Kumarila,
who admits that words possess a meaning independently of
combination in injunctive sentences, and whose theory
accepts, therefore, the combination of significant terms
(abhihitdnvaya) . The two schools, however, are at one in
holding that the signification of words is a class signifi
cation (I, 3, 30-35), as the theory of the eternity of words
demands. The modern Nyaya, on the other hand, insists
that the import of words is always the concrete individual,
while the older Nyaya (II, 2, 61-71) adopts the doctrine
that the word expresses the class (jdti), individual (vyakti),
40 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
and characteristic mark of the class (dkrti), all at once.
The Buddhist view, again, insists on negative determination
only, on the ground that it is impossible to determine
positively the specific nature of anything, and that all that
can be attained is a series of negations, a view which
Kumarila refutes at great length,1 insisting that the doctrine
would mean the impossibility of distinguishing between any
two things, since, for instance, both the cow and the horse
are negatives of the elephant, and could never deal with
individuals, each negation being necessarily general. The
defender of Apoha thus accepts the existence of negative
classes, which must be all identical, since he cannot rely,
ex hypothesi, on any positive means of discrimination between
them.
The case for the claim that words denote individuals, as
put in the Sutra (1,3,33) in the view of Prabhakara, is that,
if it were not so, all injunctions, Vedic or profane, would
become meaningless; number and gender would be out of
place with regard to nouns; there could be no words to
express qualities, and agreement between noun and adjective
would be impossible. Prabhakara replies by insisting that,
as indicated by the Bhasya, if words had individual
meanings, such a sentence as, " One should pile the fire altar
in the form of a kite," would be meaningless, as it cannot
be supposed that such an injunction was intended to refer
to an individual kite, while its plain meaning is a reference
to the class " kite." Without this element of generality all
injunctions are absurd, and the necessary individual reference
in certain cases is obtained through the generality, with
which it is inseparably connected. Kumarila adds that this
view is supported by the fact that the word " cow," as
experience shows, does not suggest to us an individual cow,
but the class; if individuals were denoted by words, a generic
idea like " cow " would be impossible, and even if possible
would merely consist of the impression of all the peculiarities
of all cows known to the thinker. Again, the word cannot
denote all the individuals, since this would mean that the
1 Slokavarttika, pp. 566-614; Nyayamanjarl, pp. 303-8; contrast
Ratnakirti's Apohasiddhi (Six Buddhist Nyaya Tracts, pp. 1-19).
THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 41
word possessed as many potencies of denotation as there were
individuals, and, as all the individuals could never be
known, the word would never fully be comprehended. Nor
could the word denote an aggregate of individuals
since all individuals cannot be known, and therefore an
aggregate could not be known, while, even if it could be
known, as its constituent parts would be ever perishing or
replaced, the signification of the word would be a constant
flux. Finally, if the word meant a single individual only,
there could be no eternal connection between word and
meaning, and, in the absence of any means of discovering
which individual was meant, action would be impossible.
The difficulty regarding sacrificial operations in regard to a
class instead of an individual, is disposed of by pointing out
that such actions must be performed by substances, and
that the injunctions specify, not the individual substance
to be used in any special case, but the class of sub
stance, individual portions of which are applied by each
sacrificer.
As regards the authority attaching to words there is a
sharp distinction between the older school, followed by Pra
bhakara and Kumarila. Prabhakara holds that the only
authoritative testimony to things beyond the reach of the
senses and other means of proof is the scripture (sdstra).
Other words deal only with matters cognised by perception,
inference, etc., and have no inherent cogency; if they give
us true information, it is merely because we believe the
speaker to be trustworthy. Thus, like the Vaisesika
school,1 Prabhakara holds all cognition of this kind to be
based on inference, the argument being, " This man says
something ; he must know what he is talking about ; what
he says, therefore, must be true." From another point of
view, human words are of no higher value than re
membrance, which is admittedly no source of valid universal
judgments. Thus the sole possibility of the validity of
verbal testimony lies in the Veda, which has no author, and
therefore is not vitiated by the doubts as to trustworthiness
and ability of correct expression, which precludes us from
* Cf. Nyayamanjari, pp. 152 ff.
42 THE KARMA-MIMAMSA
according implicit belief to the assertions made to us by
any merely human authority.
There is an obvious difficulty in this reasoning, when it
is remembered that Prabhakara, like the Vrttikara, insists
on the self-evidence of cognitions, from which it would seem
to follow that the assertions of any man are prima facie
valid, until sublated by better evidence. Kumarila, who is
always anxious to accommodate the views of the school to
popular beliefs, is at the same time more in harmony with
the tenets of the school in adopting a doctrine, which does
not involve the general denial of the validity of human testi
mony. He adopts, therefore, the plan of distinguishing
testimony as human and super-human (apauruseya) , while
admitting both as valid, though for different reasons.
In the case of the Veda there is no author, and there
fore the possibility of defects is absolutely precluded.
In the case of human testimony its validity may be impaired
by defects in the speaker, but the presence of excellencies in
him precludes the presence of defects, so that if we are
assured of the latter we can be assured that the defects do
not exist. But it must not be understood that the excellencies
positively contribute to the validity of his utterances, which
they possess of themselves; the excellencies are of service
merely in assuring us of the absence of those defects,
which might cause his testimony to be suspect.
The Veda, however, has special claims on our regard, and
the Mimamsa Sutra (I, 1, 24-28) meets detailed criticisms
of its claim to eternity. Thus it is argued against its
validity that parts of it bear names of men, or refer to human
beings, to which Jaimini replies that passages bear names
of persons who studied them in detail, and that apparent
human names in the Veda are really mere cases of
homonymns; thus, as Sabarasvamin points out, Pravahana
is not the name of a man, but an epithet, " The excellent
carrier." Similarly, apparently absurd statements, such as
"The cows performed a sacrificial session," are to be under
stood merely as emphasising the value of some ritual action
by way of hyperbole, not as showing that the authors of the
Veda were foolish mortals. The eternity of words, and the
fact that it alone serves to reveal the unseen potency, which
THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 43
results from obeying its injunctions, are conclusive proofs
of the eternity of the Veda, and the alternative view of a
creator is needless and unsatisfactory both in regard to the
Veda and to the world.
Other forms of proof, both Prabhakara and Kumarila
expressly reject.1 Sambhava, which is variously interpreted
as probability, e.g. that ten is included in fifty, or much
more probably as inclusion pure and simple, is regarded as
merely a form of inference. Rumour, which like Sambhava is
claimed as a means of proof by the Pauranikas, is patently
useless for purposes of proof; its source being uncertain, it
is quite impossible to afford its contents any measure of
credit. Gesture (cesta) , which is given as a means of proof
by the Tantra school, the Mimarhsa ignores.
The relation between the various means of proof is
developed by Kumarila; the use of any means of proof
such as inference is debarred if there is a more direct mode
of cognition, e.g. sense perception, or if the contrary of
what is sought to be established is established in advance by
the use of some simpler means of proof.
1 Prakaranapancika, pp. 125, 126 ; Mdnameyodaya, pp. 64, 65 ;
Slokavarttika,' p. 492 (vv. 57. 58); Tdrkikarahsd, pp. 116, 117;
SaddarSanasamuccaya, p. 207.
Ill
THE WORLD OF REALITY
THERE is nothing to show that the question of
the reality of the world had ever occurred to the framers
of the Mlmdmsd Sutra, but in Sabarasvamin's Bhasya we
find the problem definitely faced in answer to the
onslaught made by the Nihilist school of Buddhism on the
whole conception of the reality of existence as we know it.
The doctrine of Nagarjuna,1 doubtless an effective restate
ment of tendencies earlier manifested in the Buddhist
schools, denies at once the reality of the external world, and
of the ideal world which seems to present us with the know
ledge of external reality. That much of its dialectic is
sophistic is true, but its novelty of view and the energy with
which Nagarjuna, an eastern parallel of Zeno, urged his
paradoxes, evoked from the orthodox schools elaborate replies,
both the Nydya and the Veddnta Sutras seeking to refute
heresies so dangerous to their own tenets. The reply of the
Mimamsa, in keeping with what appears to be the early
character of that Sutra as compared with the Veddnta or
Nydya Sutras is given only in the Vrttikara as cited in the
Bhdsya.2 An opponent objects, in his version, to the
validity of our waking perceptions, on the ground that in a
dream we have cognitions which all admit to be without
foundation, and, if this is true of one set of cognitions, it may
be assumed to be equally true of another. The reply of the
Vrttikara is, in effect, that the argument assumes what is to be
1 Mulamadhyanmkakarika, ed. Bibliotheca Buddhica, 1903-1913 ;
Max Walleser, Die Mittlere Lehredes Nagarjuna, Heidelberg, 1911 and
1912. Cf. SarvadarSanasamgraha, ch. II; Sarvasiddhantasameraha,
ch. IV.
1 Pp. 8-10.
THE WORLD OF REALITY 45
proved, namely, that all cognitions as such are invalid. On
the contrary, we can form the idea of the invalidity of dream
cognition simply from our having waking cognitions which
afford us a basis for discrediting the dream cognitions, and we
can explain the defects of dream cognitions by the assumption
that the mind in dream is weak and does not act effectively,
a view which we can support by the fact that in deep sleep
the mind is wholly absent, suggesting that in the dream state
it is in a condition intermediate between its effective waking
presence and its disappearance. The opponent, however,
continues the argument by urging that the object of the cogni
tion is really a void, thus discrediting the validity of the
cognition. There is, he says, no difference between the object
of perception and the idea; the idea is directly perceived,
and there is nothing in reality corresponding to an external
object. The Vrttikara replies that this view rests on the
erroneous assumption that an idea must have a form; it
really is without form, which, on the other hand, the external
object possesses. What we perceive is not our idea, but
something localised as outside ourselves; no idea can
perceive another idea, for each has a momentary existence
only, whence one cannot be present to another. The
opponent contends that the second idea has a certain con
tinuity with the first ; as it originates, it becomes known to
the first and reveals to it the object, just as a lamp
illumines and thus makes known things. Or, put in
another way, it is the idea which first originates, and then
the object becomes known, having no anterior real existence.
The Vrttikara refutes this by insisting that, though the idea
originates first, it is not known first; as we have seen, the
idea is known by inference from the fact of our cognition of
an object, and the actual knowledge and the knowledge of
the idea cannot possibly be simultaneous. Though we know
an object, we sometimes say we do not know it, that is, that
we are not conscious of having an idea about it. Further,
ideas are essentially connected with names, while perception
is essentially immediate knowledge, in which naming is not
necessarily involved. Moreover, if the idea and the object
had the same form, as is assumed in the opponent's argument,
this would sublate the idea, not the object, which is directly
46 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
perceived, but in truth the idea is formless and known by
inference, while the object is endowed with form and is an
object of sense perception. Or, again, the reality of an
external world is shown by the fact that we have the idea of a
mat only when threads form its material cause; if otherwise,
then a man might form the idea of a jar despite the use of
threads in the composition of an object; put more broadly, our
ideas are not the free result of our mental activity; they are
imposed upon us as regards their content by external reality.
The argument as a whole thus falls into two parts, the
first dealing with the contention that ideas have no
foundation (nirdlambana) , and the second with the view
that external reality is void (sunya). Both these con
tentions are the tenets of the Nihilism of Buddhism,
and there is no real ground for doubt that the arguments
of the Vrttikara are directed against this contention.
Kumarila,1 however, or some predecessor, has interpreted
the passage otherwise, treating the first part of the argu
ment as directed against the Vijnanavada of Vasubandhu
and Asanga,2 which admitted the reality of ideas, while
denying that of the outer ^ world, and the second part he
treats as a refutation of the Sunyavada of the Madhyamika
school of Nagarjuna. Precisely the same fate3 has over
taken the corresponding discussions of the Sunyavada in
the Nydya and Vedanta Sutras; Vatsyayana still interpreted
the former (IV, 2, 25-33) in its true sense, but Vacaspati
Misra reads into part of it an attack on the Vijnanavada;
in the case of the Vedanta Sarhkara turns the whole pass
age (II, 2, 28-32) into an attack on that school, while
Ramanuja treats it as refuting both Buddhist doctrines.
The causes for these vagaries of interpretation are obvious ;
the Sunyavada in its refutation of external reality
used the arguments which the Vijnanavada later employed,
1 Slokavarttika, pp. 217-67, 268-345. Prakaranapancikd, pp. 141
ff, 171 (a fragment only); cf. Nyayakanika, pp. 253 ff, Manameyo-
dqya, pp. 119-22; NySyamanjarl, pp. 536 ff (Vijnanavada), 548 ff
(Sunyavada) .
2 Mahayanasutralamkara, ed. and trans. S. Levi, Paris, 1907-11 ;
Sarvadarfanasamgraha, ch. I ; Sarvasiddh&ntasanigraha, ch. IV (ii);
SaddarSanasamuccaya, pp. 40, 41, 47.
' • Jacobi, J.A.O.S., XXXI, Iff,
THE WORLD OF REALITY 47
but it supplemented the conclusions it arrived at regarding
external reality by t demolishing the value of our ideas.
Any reply to the Sunyavada must therefore include an
answer which would apply to the Vijnanavada, and
later authors like Kumarila naturally thought that the
discussion must deal with the more recent and more
convincing school of Vijnanavada. But the Vrttikara
shows no knowledge of the peculiar terminology of the
Vijnanavada, such as its distinction between the Alaya-
vijnana, the quasi-permanent consciousness which constitutes
the individual until he attains Nirvana, and the particular
presentations which are thence derived (pravrtti-vijndna).
Moreover, the argument from the dream condition is not
peculiar to the Vijnanavada; on the contrary it is a special
favourite of the Madhyamikas, occurring in the Mddhya-
mika Sutra (VII, 34) and in other texts cited in the Vrtti
on that text.
The view of Prabhakara is in accord with the Vrttikara
and iheBhasya, but Rumania's interpretation of the passage
has the advantage of eliciting from him a most interesting
exposition of, and attack upon, the Buddhist Vijnanavada
and Sunyavada theories. The discussion shows the close
affinity of the two doctrines, and the form of the argument
is often complicated by the resort to elaborate syllogistic
reasoning, but the whole makes a very creditable effort to
refute either the extreme scepticism of the Madhyamika or
the extreme idealism of the Yogacaras. The reality of an
external world is vehemently insisted upon as the only
foundation of the common facts of life, including such
distinctions as those of virtue and vice, teacher and pupil.
If there were nothing but ideas, all our views would be
false, since they essentially rest on the belief in external
reality. Moreover, there is a complete counter argument;
cognitions, we hold, have real substrata in the external
world ; this notion of ours is correct, because it is without
contradiction, like the notion of the falsity of dream cog
nition. If you reply by denying the validity of the pro
bative example which we adduce, then the doctrine that
dream cognitions are false would disappear, and you would
lose the chief argument adduced against the reality which
48 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
underlies cognitions as a whole. Moreover, in dream
cognitions, which you adduce as examples where there is no
underlying reality, we find on examination that there is
always a real substratum, however much distorted and
disguised. If, again, you argue that the unreality of
our waking cognitions is revealed by the fact that the
Yogin sees reality far otherwise, we retort by denying the
validity of his perception, and citing against him the visions
of our Yogins. Nor can we accept the arguments of the
Buddhist logicians, such as Dignaga, who assert that the
activity of the mind can supply the full complement of
notions, which appear to us to reflect reality;1 without an
external world all these mental conceptions would be
meaningless, for we deal not with conceptions, but with the
facts of life.
Against the conception that cognition alone exists to the
exclusion of cogniser and cognised, Kumarila contends with
special energy. The case for this conception is set out by
him with much care as the prelude to his reply to the
Sunyavada. It rests on the difficulty of understanding how
cognition and cognised can be related. There cannot really
be two entities, one formless and one possessing form, for in
memory, when no object is present, we still have cognition
of form, showing that the cognition has form, and rendering
the hypothesis of an external reality mere superfluity. How,
again, can there be contact between the incorporeal cognition
and the external object ? An object can be perceived only
if it has form, but again the form does not exist until it is
perceived, which involves contradiction. Again, even if
contact were possible, how could two things, in themselves
without form, acquire it in this way ? Moreover, the idea
we have of a double moon is admittedly erroneous, and
therefore cannot rest on reality. So also we use a variety of
words of varied gender for the stars, and a masculine word
(dardh) for a wife, which would be impossible if reality
controlled our ideas. The same thing, e.g. a lovely woman,
raises very different feelings in the mind of the ascetic, the
1 Cf. RatnakaraSanti's treatment of inference as internal only,
Antarvyaptisamarthana (Six Buddhist Nyaya Tracts, pp. 103-14).
49
lover, and the dog. The same object appears to us in one
aspect short, in the other long, and so forth. All this refutes
the possibility of an external reality. The true theory is
one suggested by the doctrine of impressions, which the
Mimamsa itself uses to explain memory and dream cogni
tion. There is one thing only, the cognition, but, as the
result of impressions left by previous cognitions, there
appears the distinction of cogniser, cognised, and cognition,
in place of the unity. Each idea is momentary, but it can
and does impress its successor; there is no substantial
reality like the soul, but a never-ceasing series of momentary
ideas, impressed each by the former, gives man the sem
blances which we regard in ordinary life as the outer world
and the soul.
The reply of Rumania to this ingenious suggestion
emphasises the impossibility of belief in the momentary
character of ideas and the continuance which the theory
requires. If each idea is really momentary, and perishes
utterly, as the Buddhists assert, how can it affect the
subsequent idea, contemporaneity of ideas being negated by
the Buddhist theory? How, again, can impressions create
new sensations, as opposed to mere reviving memories?
How can the essential distinction of cogniser and cognised
be sublated? How can each cognition in an interminable
series contain in itself the whole of the past, when manifestly
it does not make any attempt to do so? In what sense can
our cognition, say of one animal, followed by that of another
animal, be said to involve the conditioning of the second by
the quite disparate first? We have many cognitions which
are not the result of impressions at all. The only possible
explanation of the unity and continuity of our mental
life, lies in the recognition of a substantial unity in the self.
Kumarila insists that no idea can comprehend itself,
and also that no idea can be comprehended by another.
He rejects, therefore, not merely the Buddhist view but the
Nyaya-Vaisesika conception by which our ideas are the
object of mental perception, and the allied Sautrantika1
1 $addarSanasamuccaya, p. 47 ; SarvasiddhSntasarhgraha, IV,
ii, 1-7.
50 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
speculation, which holds that the form of the object is
impressed on the cognition. The objection to the Nyaya-
Vaisesika view appears to be that the idea is understood by
the school to be perceived simultaneously with the object,
and, as the perception of the idea requires that it should be
provided with visible form, that is, colour and extension,
there would be no possibility of demonstrating the existence
of the external object, since, the form being cognised with
the idea, an external reference would be needless. The
objection, it must be noted, is not cogent against the
developed form of the Nyaya doctrine, in which it is held
that on the actual cognition (vyavasaya) there supervenes
the mental perception of the cognition (anuvyavasdya) ; the
cognition thus brings reality immediately before the mind,
while in a secondary act the cognition itself is made the
object of introspection, as in the accepted theory of modern
psychology. The Mnnamsa, by ignoring this possible view,
renders it necessary to hold that a cognition can never be
the object of introspection; it is an entity which is inferred
from the fact of cognition; its existence is known, but not
as an object of sense-perception of any kind. Mental
perception, which the school admits, is thus restricted to
those forms of mental activity which are not cognitive.
There remains, however, yet another contention of the
Sunyavada which Kumarila seeks to refute. It is based on
the view that atoms are invisible, that aggregates of atoms
are invisible, that all objects, being composed of such
aggregates, are invisible and incomprehensible, and therefore
void. The weight of this argument lies in the fact that the
Mlmamsa gives a more or less hearty acceptance to the doctrine
of atoms, though Kumarila is careful not to bind himself
definitively to it. The conglomeration of atoms, it is urged,
is impossible, since atoms have no extension, or at any rate no
parts, and no contact between them is, therefore, conceivable.
More generally, it is also contended that no whole of parts
can really exist. If it did, it must either reside in its entirety
in each of the component parts, which is positively absurd,
or it must reside collectively in all the parts; in this event,
even if it can be assumed that it is something over and above
the parts, it would be perceived only when all the parts had
THE WORLD OF REALITY 51
been perceived, which would be normally impossible, abso
lutely so in the case of a whole of imperceptible parts like
atoms. This dialectic, which the Nyaya Sutra (IV, 2, 7-14)
also seeks to face, is met with the argument that, as there is
an interminable dispute between the opposing schools, the
Buddhists who deny the difference of the whole from its parts,
and the Nyaya who assert the distinction, the safe course
lies in the via media of admitting that a whole is in one sense
different from, and in another sense not different from,
its constituent parts. A whole, therefore, is not of a
simple and absolute character, and resembles an object
with variegated hues, but it is not the less real for
that. Invalidity applies to doubtful ideas, not to ideas of
an object which in itself is not absolute in character. The
stock argument of the Buddhists, that if any composite thing
is investigated no whole remains after deduction of the com
posing parts, e.g. the threads of a mat, is met by the rejoin
der, in harmony with the Nyaya, that the same result is
achieved on the Nyaya view, which regards the whole as
different from the parts ; the whole, in their view, only exists
when -there is an agglomeration of parts; if, mentally, you
take away the parts, naturally the whole, despite its
difference from the parts, disappears also. The further
hypothesis, that what is really seen is merely atoms without
real unity but visible in numbers, though singly invisible,
is naturally rejected as devoid of cogency. Finally, the
argument is used that the attempt to ask if a whole resides
in the parts, as an entirety in each or collectively in all, is
mistaken. The whole is impartite, and the idea of its
relation to its individual constituents in whole or in part
is a question which arises only in respect of the individual
elements, and is meaningless as applied to the whole.1
The value of Rumania's refutation of the Buddhist
schools is not inconsiderable; he brings out fully the grave
difficulties which meet any effort to account for the facts of
life without accepting some permanent entity, and the objec
tions to the effort to evade this problem by creating the fig-
1 Slokavarttika, pp. 632-34 (vv. 75-83) ; cf. Nyayamanjari, p. 550 ;
Avayaivinirdkarana (Six Buddhist Nyaya Tracts, pp. 78-93),
52 THE KARMA-MlMAlVISA
ment of an unending series of ideas, each of which must be
supposed to take upon itself in some form the impressions of
the whole previous history of the series. He insists, also
rightly, on the impossibility of accepting any purely subjective
idealism, but he does not seem to have appreciated the possi
bility of discarding this attitude, but accepting an objective
idealism. A suggestion to this effect was implicit in the doc
trine of knowledge adduced by Dignaga,1 which insisted that
inference and other mental acts dealt with ideal contents, but
Kumarila was able to reply to this doctrine that the whole
scheme was meaningless, as it assumed that there was
nothing truly real beyond the unreal play of ideas in the
mind. No true objective idealism was, therefore, before his
mind, and he is content to assert absolutely the reality of an
external world, which is not the product of intellect, but
which is known by us, the relation of knowledge to reality
being of a peculiar and unique type, involving an activity
on the part of the cogniser which does not, however, create
the object.
In their positive doctrines as to the nature of the
universe there are considerable differences between Prabha-
kara and Kumarila. The former admitted, it is clear,2 no
fewer than eight categories, while the latter accepted five
only. They agreed in regard to substance, quality, action
or motion, and generality, but, while Prabhakara accepted
the category of inherence from the Nyaya-Vaisesika, and
added the three of potency or capacity (sakti), similarity
(sddrsya), and number (samkhyd) , Kumarila rejected the
three additions of Prabhakara, and also, in this case
in agreement with his predecessor, the particularity
(visesa) of the Nyaya-VaiSesika. Finally, inherence was
also rejected by him. On the other hand, the texts ascribe
definitely to him the acceptance of the category of non-
existence (abhdva), with a fourfold division of prior
negation, subsequent negation or destruction, absolute nega-
1 Slokavarttika, p. 258 (v. 167) . The invalidity of all but indeter
minate perception is asserted in Saddarfanasamuccaya, p. 41.
a Prameyaparayana in Mallinatha Tdrkikaraksd, p. 164 ; Mana-
meyodaya, pp. 65, 114 ff ; Prakaranapancika, pp. 110, 111 (over
looked in Prabhakara School, p. 89).
THE WORLD OF REALITY 53
tion, and mutual negation, sub-divisions which, of course, are
simply transferred bodily from the Nyaya-Vaisesika doctrine.
Non-existence stands in definite opposition to the other four
categories accepted by Kumarila; though regarded as real, it
is nevertheless admitted to be essentially relative to the four
categories of being (bhava). Prabhakara, however, rejects
non-existence, as might have been expected from his rejec
tion of non-existence or non-apprehension as a means of
proof. The only reality, in his view, in the absence of a
pot from a spot of ground is the spot of ground. The
particularity of the Nyaya-Vaisesika, which serves to
differentiate such things as the ultimate atoms and selves,
has no foundation as a separate category, as the differentia
tion can be based on the ordinary qualities which these
things possess.
Substance1 is that in which qualities reside, and Prabha
kara reckons the number as nine: earth, water, air, fire, ether,
the self or soul (fitment), mind, time, and space. Kumarila
is credited with admitting also the substantiality of dark
ness and sound, while others accept gold as a twelfth. Of
these earth, water, air and fire all possess colour and
tangibility, and accordingly are the objects of the senses of
sight and touch, but only when in non-atomic form, for some
degree of magnitude is recognised by Prabhakara, as by the
later Nyaya-Vaisesika, as a necessary condition, along with
touch (sparsa) , of proper sense perception. The other five
substances cannot be regarded as perceptible, since they
cannot be seen or touched, and therefore are only inferred to
exist. In the case of ether the apparent whiteness of it is
due to particles of fire in it, while the darkness of night is
not a substance, nor is it a quality ; if it were a quality it
would be perceptible by day also, and therefore must be
deemed to be merely absence of light. A variant of this
doctrine in the school of Prabhakara declares darkness to be
the absence of the knowledge of light. Kumarila claims
darkness as a substance, because it is blue in colour and
moves, these two facts being necessarily attributed to some
1 PrakaranapancikG, pp. 24, 54, 77, 84, 141 ff ; Manameyodaya,
pp. 6ff, 66ff,'78ff ; Slokavarttika, p. 404 (v. 183); Tarkikaraksa,
pp. 133, 134.
54 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
substance, but the Nyaya denies these facts. Pointing out
that a colour can be perceived only in light, and darkness is
experienced when there is no light. Sridhara again suggests
that darkness is the imposition of blue colour on something
else. The necessity of inferring ether arises from the nature
of sound, which must be provided with a substratum; unlike
Kumarila, Prabhakara sees no sufficient ground to give to
sound the rank of a distinct substance, a position which has
obvious difficulties in a system which allots so pre-eminent a
place to the word.
Air, in Prabhakara's view is neither hot nor cold, the
apparent heat being due to fire particles, and the coolness to
water particles diffused in it. Kumarila also regards it as
perceptible, but does not claim that it has any colour; he
rejects therefore the Nyaya view that it can only be inferred,
colour being necessary to perception, and adopts the later
Nyaya opinion which admits of direct perception through
the sense of touch. In this and in many other details his
school, if not the founder, clearly largely assimilated the
Nyaya- Vaisesika physics, though it is clear that Kumarila
himself was not prepared to accept the atomic theory as
absolutely essential to his principles. Some of his followers
went further, and claimed that ether, space and time were
directly perceptible, but on these points the doctrine of both
schools seems never to have been developed.
The account of qualities which inhere in substances,
and are distinct from motion, given by both Prabhakara
and Kumarila shows obvious obligations to the Vaisesika.1
Prabhakara gives as objects of perception the qualities of
colour, taste, smell, and touch; number, dimension, indivi
duality, conjunction, disjunction, priority and posteriority;
pleasure, pain, desire, aversion, and effort, and, like the
Vaisesika, distinguishes conjunctions and disjunctions ac
cording as they are produced by the action of one or both
of the things concerned, or rise mediately through another
conjunction or disjunction. Kumarila, like Piasastapada,
enumerates twenty-four qualities : colour, smell, taste,
1 Prakaranapancikd, pp. 54, 151 ; Mdnameyodaya, pp. 99-111 ;
T6rkikaraksd,'p. 164.
THE WORLD OF REALITY 55
touch ; number, individuality, dimension, conjunction,
disjunction, priority, posteriority; gravity, fluidity, viscidity;
cognition, pleasure, pain, desire, aversion, effort, impression
(covering velocity, elasticity, and mental impression), tone
(dhvani), which is a quality of the air, revealing sound,
manifestation (prdkatya), a quality common to all sub
stances, perceptible and determining them, and potency.
Potency is reckoned by Prabhakara as a distinct category;
its existence is proved by inference: fire burns normally,
but under the influence of some spell it ceases to have that
effect ; there must, therefore, be something of special charac
ter in the fire by virtue of which it burns. Words al^o have
the potency to denote meanings, and so on ad infinitum.
It is eternal in eternal things, but transient in transient
things, coming into being with them and disappearing when
they disappear, and thus differing from impression (sams-
kara), which even in eternal things is evanescent. The
Nyaya view is sensibly opposed to the recognition of any
such conception, since, strictly speaking, the number of
potencies in any object might be regarded as very numerous,
negating the possibility of accepting potency as one quality
or a distinct category of being. Number, which Prabhakara
makes a separate category,1 in the list of Kumarila falls to
the rank of a quality. The classification of qualities and
their assignment to substances follows generally the classifi
cation first given in infinite detail by Prasastapada. From
his list Kumarila departs only in the substitution of tone for
sound, and of manifestation and potency for merit and
demerit. Unlike Prasastapada, he denies that cognition is
the object of mental perception, though admitting this for
the other special qualities of the self. From the school of
Prabhakara that of Kumarila differs in asserting that indi
viduality applies both to eternal things and to products,
while the former asserts that it applies to eternal things
alone. Priority and posteriority apply to both space and
time ; the later Nyaya wisely rejects both as general quali
ties, since they are essentially determinations of space and
1 In Prakaranapancikd, p. 54, it appears as a quality : impression
in its various form is referred to (pp. 80, 81) as inferred only ; the full
treatment occurred in the missing Prameyaparayana (seeibid. p. 111).
56 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
time, or, as stated in the Mdnameyodaya, are special quali
ties of these entities.
Action1 as a category covers only, as in the Nyaya-
Vaisesika, the restricted field of motion, with its traditional
five-fold divisions, as throwing up or down, drawing towards
or expanding, and motions other than these. But Prabha-
kara maintains that it is only an object of inference, while
Kumarila holds that it is perceived. The argument of the
former rests on the fact that, when we think we see motion,
we only see conjunction and disjunction with points of space,
these contacts subsisting only in outside space and not in the
moving thing, in which the activity of motion must reside.
The reply of Kumarila 's school is that it could only be
inferred as the immaterial cause of the conjunction and
disjunction of a thing with points in space, which would
mean that it must subsist both in space and in the thing,
whereas it exists in the thing only. We really see motion,
which is in the thing and which brings about conjunction
and disjunction in space, a doctrine which has now excellent
modern support.
Generality both Prabhakara and Kumarila admit as real
and as directly perceptible by the senses, and thus set them
selves at variance with the Buddhist denial that there is any
such thing as generality. The first Buddhist argument rests
on the impossibility of the existence of any whole, which
both schools of MImamsa deny. But further difficulties
are raised. If generality is perceptible and is eternal, as
claimed in the MImamsa, the absurdity arises of perpetual
perception. Again, how is generality related to the indivi
duals; is it present in its entirety in each?2 If so, then
there are as many generalities as individuals, and there is
mere duplication of names. If not, then it must exist in all
collectively, and therefore be entirely unknown, since one
can never know all the individuals which make up a
generality. If it is eternal, and exists before the individuals,
1 Prakiranapancika, pp. 78-81 ; Mdnameyodaya, pp. 112, 113 ;
a wider view is taken in £lokavdrttika, ,p. 707 (v. 74).
2 Prakaranapancikd, pp. 17-32; Slokavdrttika, pp. 545-65, 614-
39; Mdnameyodaya, pp. 95-99; cf. Nyayamanjarl, pp. 297-324; Aioka,
Sdmdnyadusanadikprasdritd(Six Buddhist Nyaya Tracts, pp. 94-102) .
THE WORLD OF REALITY 57
it ought to be knowable by itself, which is plainly absurd; if
it comes into being with the individual, how is it distinct
from it? The reply given by both these schools is an
appeal to consciousness; we have as an actual fact direct
perception of generality, and we cannot be induced to dis
believe it by any process of inference, which cannot have the
validity of direct preception. To confute our belief it is
necessary to adduce some defect in the organs of perception
or a sublating cognition, and neither of these processes is
possible. The Buddhists would ask us to disbelieve in the
existence of colour, but we decline to do so, and equally we
find no cogency in their request that we should refuse belief
to the evidence of our senses regarding generality. Nor is
it correct to ask whether generality is present in its entirety
in each individual or collectively in all; these are concep
tions which are applicable to individual things alone, not to
the impartite generality, which is not to be compared either
with a string which holds together a necklace of pearls, or
the many parts which go to constitute a single living creature.
It is not to be considered as any particular configuration or
shape, but is a distinct entity sui generis. It must not be
thought to be perceptible apart from the individual; such
an existence of a separable character, if held by the Nyaya-
Vaisesika, is definitely rejected by the Mimarhsa. In the
ultimate essence, when we analyse our idea of generality, it
rests on the fact that, despite differences in things, we
recognise in them an essential identity; among cows of
many colours and shapes, there is still the same nature.
The relation of generality to the individual may be
described as that of difference as by Prabhakara, or as
different and non-different as in the school of Kumarila,
but the view of the two schools is not materially different.
Kumarila points out that in ordinary life we recognise
things as individual or as generalities, according as we
select the one or other of the two aspects which must always
be present. The specification of a class is brought about by
various causes, such as colour, etc., or time and place. Thus
gold is distinguished by its colour from copper, melted butter
from oil by its odour and taste, a jar from other articles by
its shape, a horse by its neighing, a Brahman by origin,
58 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
and in some cases by action also, in places where the duties
of the castes are duly supervised by the king. Prabhakara,
however, declines to admit of generalities such as Brahman-
hood and Ksatriyahood, which Kumarila accepts.
Prabhakara also differs from Kumarila in his use of the
category of inherence as a means of explaining the relation
of the individual to the generality. When a new individual
of a class comes into being, what is produced is not the
existence of the generality, which is eternal, but of the
relation of inherence between the individual and the class.
Inherence differs from contact in that it does not presuppose
the previous existence of the things affected by it, and,
unlike the Nyaya-Vaisesika, Prabhakara does not hold that
it is necessarily eternal. This affords an easy reply to the
question of the fate of the class character on the destruction
of an individual; it does not go away, as it has no motion; it
does not subsist in the individual, which is no longer in being;
it does not cease to exist, for it remains in other individuals,
but the inherence between the class and the individual
comes to an end. But Kumarila1 rejects in toto the idea of
inherence as a true category; a relationship, he argues, can
exist only between things which are established as distinct
entities, and, as inherence is supposed to be a relation
between things which, like the class and the individual, are
inseparable, it is a contradiction in terms.
While Rumania's school admits, as usual, the existence of
generalities of substance, quality, and action, Prabhakara
declines to accept the last two or a summum genus of
existence as a real generality, on the ground that, as each
generality rests on the fact of actual perception, the genus
existence must be disallowed, as we do not in fact perceive
things as merely existing. The true sense of existence is
merely the individuality of things (svarilpasattd)', it is not
a true class character.
Similarity2 as a category is asserted by Prabhakara, who
holds that its existence is proved by our consciousness in
1 Slokavdrltika, I, 1, 4, vv. 146-55 ; cf. ASoka's Avayavinira-
karana (Six Buddhist Nyaya Tracts, pp. 78-86).
* Prakaranapuncika, pp. 110, 111 ; Slokavdrltika, pp. 438-41
(vv. 18-23), 565 (vv. 74-77) ; Tarkikaraksd, p. 164.
THE WORLD OF REALITY 59
precisely the same way as every other category. It cannot
be held to be substance, for it exists in quality and motion
as well as in substance. It cannot, in view of its relation to
motion and to quality, be a quality; motion has no qualities,
nor can a quality have a quality. It is not generality, for
no comprehensive conception of it exists. It is quite other
than the relation of inherence. It is not particularity,
which in any case is not a true category, since it is no more
than the quality of individuality. It must, therefore, be a
distinct category, which is perceived in the apprehension of
qualities, motions, or parts of two things as common to both.
Kumarila's rejection of this category is based on the fact
that similarity admits of degrees, e.g. the resemblance of a
cow and a buffalo is considerable, that of a cow and a boar
is slight; if there were a true category there could be no
degrees. He agrees, however, with Prabhakara in regarding
similarity as directly perceptible. It consists, in his view,
in the fact of the possession by two objects of the same
arrangement of parts, and he attributes the erection of a
special class of similarity to a misunderstanding by the
Vaisesikas of the doctrine of Vindhyavasin, which merely
asserted that generality consisted in possession of unity of
form (sdrupya), which was taken to mean likeness (sadrsya).
The same author is elsewhere1 cited by Kumarila as denying
the doctrine of the existence of the subtle transmigrating
body, a view accepted from him by Kumarila, and as
enunciating the principle of the genesis of inference, which
is accepted also in the Slokavarttika. Who this author was
is not apparent; he cannot, it is certain, be Isvarakrsna,
nor is there any plausibility in identifying him with the
Vindhyavasa who plays a part in the history of the Samkhya,
whether or not he was really Isvarakrsna.2 He may, of course,
have been an older teacher of the Mlmamsa school itself.
Cause is not reckoned by either school as a category,
a fact significant of the curious failure of Indian
1 P_P. 704 (v.62), 393 (v. 143).
2 Samkhya System, pp. 62, 69. Gunaratna (Saddarfanasa'-nuccaya
p. 104) cites a £loka of Vandhyavasin (!), who was clearly, in his view,
not I&varakr§na, but it is hard to say of what value his evidence is, or to
whom he refers.
60 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
philosophers to find a due place for this issue, even when, as
in the case of the Nyaya-Vaisesika, they by no means ignore
its importance. But there seems no evidence that either
Prabhakara or Kumarila contributed anything of novelty
or value to the doctrine. In his discussion of perception,
as we have seen, the former makes use of the doctrine of the
division of causes into the material or inherent (samavayi-
kdrana), and immaterial or non-inherent (asamavdyi) , a
distinction, doubtless, taken from the Nyaya-Vaisesika.1
The denial by Kumarila of the conception of inherence
would have precluded him from adopting such a distinction of
causes.
Causation, however, affords Kumarila an argument in
favour of his thesis of the reality of non-existence.2 That
entity he classifies as prior, as the non-existence of curd in
milk; subsequent or destruction, as the non-existence of milk
in curd; mutual, as the non-existence of the horse in the cow
and vice versa; and absolute, as the non-existence of a horn
on the head of the hare. Without the recognition of the first
two kinds, he contends, there could be no idea of causation :
in its prior negation lies the character of the curd as effect, in
its destruction that of the milk as the cause. Everything has
two aspects: it regards its self, it exists, as regards anything
else it is non-existent; and both these aspect? are real and
necessary to each other. It is only through this fact that we
can say, " There is no jar on the ground," or that we can
ever differentiate things, which is possible only on the ground
of a real existence of non-existence. It is impossible to
perceive this entity, for perception must deal with the exis
tent; the process of intellection is, therefore, purely mental;
the ground is seen, the jar remembered, and then ensues the
purely mental cognition styled negation, which must be
distinguished from inference or any other form of know
ledge.
1 It may be noted that Salikanatha commented on the PraSasta,
p&dabhasya (Bodleian Catalogue, p. 244).
1 Slokaz-drttika, pp. 473-92 ; Manameyodaya, pp. 58-64, 114-18;
cf. Nyayamaf.jari, pp. 49-63 ; Saddarsanasamuecaya, pp. 295-98.
IV
GOD, THE SOUL, AND MATTER
THOUGH the MImamsa is so deeply concerned with the
sacrifice, it has no belief in the doctrine that the rewards of
offering are to be expected either from the deities to whom
the offerings are directed to be made, or from a God as
creator or apportioner of reward and punishment. The
sacrifice generates an unseen potency, whence the goods
desired by sacrificers are obtained ; the Veddnta Sutra
(III, 2, 40) expressly negatives the idea that in Jaimini's
view there was divine intervention in this regard, and the
atheism of the true MImamsa is regarded with such unani
mity as to render it impossible to explain it away.1 The
full development, however, of the doctrine is, as usual, to
be found in Prabhakara and Kumarila, who adopted from
the Nyaya-Vaisesika the groundwork of their views of the
world, but declined to follow that school in its speculations
on the existence of a creator.2
The Nyaya-Vaisesika, accepting the doctrine of atoms
on the one hand and of the periodical creation and destruc
tion of the world on the other, had found it necessary to
introduce the conception of a creator, in order to secure in
some measure a mode of bringing about the renewal and
destruction of the combinations of the atoms and their
connection with souls. But Prabhakara and Kumarila
alike deny absolutely the validity of the belief in the periodic
creation and dissolution of all things ; they accept a con-
1 As does Max Miiller, Six Systems, pp. 275-79 ; cf. K. L. Sarkar,
Tagore Law Lectures, 1905, p. 508.
2 Prakaranapancikd, pp. 137-40 ; Slokavarttika, pp. 639-80 ;
Mdnameyodaya, pp. 70-74; cf. Ny&yamanjari, pp. 193-204; Sad-
darSanatamuccaya, pp. 284 ff.
62 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
stant process of becoming and passing away, but they find
no ground for the systematisation of the process, so as to
produce cycles of evolution and involution of souls. Experi
ence, Prabhakara urges, shows us the bodies of all animals
being produced by purely natural means; we can argue hence
to the facts of the past and the future, and need invoke no
extraneous aid. Moreover, the whole conception of God
supervising the merits and demerits of men is idle; God
cannot perceive merit or demerit by perception, since they are
not perceptible, nor by the mind, which is confined to the body
which it occupies. Supervision also is impossible, even had
God the necessary knowledge ; it^must take the form either
of contact, which is impossible as merit and demerit being
qualities are not subject to contact, or inherence, and
plainly a man's qualities cannot inhere in God. If the
argument is adduced of the analogy of the carpenter, it may
be replied that on this basis the creator would have to be an
embodied spirit, and no embodied spirit can affect such
subtle things as the atoms or merit and demerit. Nor is it
conceivable that the atoms should themselves act under the
will of God, for no parallel to such activity is known to us,
and, if it were possible, it would follow from the eternity of
the will of God that creation would be unceasing. The only
true case of supervision known to us is that exercised by
the soul over the body, which it occupies by virtue of its
merit or demerit, and there is no need to hold that the world
is more than an ever-changing sequence of things affected by
the souls in it.
Rumania's treatment includes both an elaborate attack
on the whole conception of creation and a special refutation
of the Vaisesika views. He ridicules the idea of the exis
tence of Prajapati before the creation of matter; without a
a body, how could he feel desire ? If he possessed a body,
then matter must have existed before his creative activity,
and there is no reason to deny then the existence of other
bodies. Nor is there any intelligible motive for creation ;
granted that, when the world exists, conditions are regulated
by merit and demerit, originally there was no merit or
demerit, and the creation of a world full of misery was
inexcusable, for it is idle to argue that a creator could only
GOD, THE SOUL, AND MATTER 63
produce a world in which there is sin and pain. Yet, if his
action is conditioned, he cannot be omnipotent. If, again,
it is alleged that the creation was for his amusement, this
contradicts the theory that he is perfectly happy, and would
involve him in much wearisome toil. Moreover, there is no
possibility of establishing the reality of his creative activity.
It could only rest on reports of the first of created men, and they
could have no power to testify effectively to a state of things
existing before they were brought into being. They could
only rely on what they were told by the creator, and his
assertions might be mere boasting. Nor is it at all satis
factory to accept the belief in the creation of the Veda,
which by no means enhances its value ; still less to hold
that it resides with the creator during the periodic dissolu
tions of the world, for which, again, there is not a shred
of evidence.
Against the Vaisesika view of creation exception is
justly taken to the difficulty involved in holding that in
some manner the action of the Supreme Lord brings to a
stand at one time the potencies of all the souls, and then
awakens them all when a new creation is imminent. Against
this view it is contended that the activity of men arising
from their past deeds can never cease, and it is absurd
needlessly to complicate matters by assuming both the force
of men's deeds and the intervention of the desire of God.
Moreover, it is impossible to explain why this desire should
ever arise, and unintelligible to elucidate the mode in which
the creator can act without a body or acquire a body.
Kumarila, however, does not content himself with
refuting the Nyaya-Vaisesika doctrine; he attacks equally
the Vedanta,1 on the simple ground that, if the absolute is,
as it is asserted to be, absolutely pure, the world itself
should be absolutely pure. Moreover, there could be no
creation, for nescience is impossible in such an absolute.
If, however, we assume that some other cause starts nescience
to activity, then the unity of the absolute disappears.
Again, if nescience is natural it is impossible to remove it,
for that could be accomplished only by knowledge of the
1 Cf. Nyayamaftjari, pp. 525-31.
64 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
self, which, on the theory of the natural character of
nescience, is out of the question. Nor is the Sarhkhya
doctrine of many selves and nature any more tenable as
a theory of creation. The beginning of creation is held to
be due to a disturbance in the equilibrium of the three
constituents which make up nature. But how can such
a disturbance take place at a first creation, when there are
no potencies due to men's actions demanding fruition?
Even at subsequent creations, how do latent potentialities
by themselves become fruitful without any consciousness
to direct them? And, if they do attain fruition, the
Sarhkhya theory of liberation by knowledge is without
value, since the potencies will remain able to come again
into activity. Knowledge, it must be recognised, can never
give freedom from bondage, which can be attained only by
the exhaustion of action, for which the Sarhkhya metaphysics
affords no adequate possibility, owing to the infinite
potentiality of nature.
Though the existence of a creator is denied, the
Mlmamsa accepts without reserve the doctrine of the
existence of the self or soul,1 and Sabarasvamin elaborates
the case for its existence; Prabhakara and Kumarila both
develop the theme in close accordance with his views.
The necessity of the existence of the self for the Mimamsa
rests on its fundamental assumption that the sacrifices are
performed to secure, in many cases, a reward not in this life.
There must, therefore, be an eternal entity, distinct from the
body, the sense organs, and cognitions, which is both the
doer of actions and the reaper of their reward. It is not
unnaturally objected that there is a strong presumption
against claiming eternity for something which suffers
change, but the more serious objection is made that men do
not realise, when they reap results, the actions which
brought these about, thus invalidating the value of the
assumed continuity, and that there is nothing unnatural in
a man determining to do an act which will lead to evil
results in the future, secure in the knowledge that, when
Sutra, pp. 18-24 ; Prakaranapancika, pp. 141-60 ;
Slokavarttika, pp. 689-728 ; Mdnanteyodaya,'pp. 78-84.
GOD, THE SOUL, AND MATTER 65
these results come to fruition, he will not remember their
cause. To this Kumarila replies that remembrance has
nothing whatever to do with the matter; the wise, who
alone are worthy of sacrificing, realise in all their actions
the law of retribution, even without remembering the facts
of each case. Nor is it any argument against the eternity
of the soul that it undergoes modifications; we see
in actual experience abundant evidence of changes in man's
condition in life without any cessation of the substantial
identity, and we treat death as no more than a change
through which the soul endures. The sea remains, despite
the movements of its waves; the serpent uncoils, without
change of essence.
To the theory of the substantial soul the Buddhist at
once objects, and proposes instead the doctrine of the series
of ideas, each of which gathers from its predecessor the
impressions of its unending past. The performer, therefore,
it is contended, is the same as the enjoyer, but this contention
Kumarila rejects. It is impossible to accept this view,
he argues, unless the first idea and the last in the series,
from performance to result, have a common substratum.
Apart from the fact that, if ideas are really momentary,
there can be no interaction and no series, it is impossible on
the series theory to find any rational basis for action, since
the doer will clearly not reap what he did, and action
without rational ground is out of the question among men.
Moreover, the exact character of transmigration presents
insuperable difficulties on the Buddhist theory. It is
impossible for an immaterial idea to move about in a living
body, much less to transfer itself from one body to another.
The hypothesis of a subtle body which serves as an
intermediary between one life and rebirth is denied by
Vindhyavasin, and unsupported by any evidence, nor, if it
existed, is it clear how an idea would pass with it. Nor,
again, can the existence of an idea in the embryo be explained.
The embryo has no sense organs and cannot have cognitions,
and an idea is never known to exist save in the form of a
cognition. Nor can it be supposed that the idea exists as
a latent potentiality in the embryo without a substratum,
while, if the sense organs are assumed to be the substratum,
5
66 THE KARMA-MIMAMSA
then they would possess intelligence, and rebirth would
become impossible, since on their destruction intelligence
would go also; further, the share played by the organs in
developing the idea would contradict the Buddhist doctrine
that the idea arises from a preceding idea only. Nor is
there any evidence that the first cognition of the newborn
child is due to a previous idea; we hold that it arises from
the functioning of the sense organs. There must, therefore,
be something which possesses the potentiality of ideas, is
eternal, and capable of transmigration. This need is
furnished by the soul, which is immaterial and omnipresent,
and thus, without motion, is able to connect itself with one
body after another.
The soul, then, is essentially active, for, unlike the
Vaisesika school, the MImamsa does not, according to
Kumarila, deem that motion is the only form of action, and
it is through its superintending activity that the motions of
the body are achieved. We must, therefore, conceive the soul
engaged from time immemorial in the work of directing
a body, the acts done in each life determining the character
of the body attained in the next, a process which will cease
only, if ever, when the soul ceases to obtain a bodily
habitation.
Again, from another point of view the Buddhist conception
of a series is imperfect. Granted that it is impossible to
establish a soul merely on the ground of such attributes of
the soul as pleasure, desire, or memory, adduced by the
Vaisesika school as indications of the existence of the soul,
since these might be explained on the theory of impressions,
no such explanation is available to dispose of the cognition
of the self. In the case of the two judgments, " I knew "
and " I know," the theory of ideas breaks completely down.
The first idea cannot, as past, know the later idea, nor can
the later idea know the first. It is useless to appeal to a
series, for the series was not present at the first cognition,
nor is it present at the last. Nor is there any unity in the
two cognitions, for the Buddhist refuses to recognise any
classes. Nor can it be argued that similarity would suffice,
for in cognitions of different objects, e.g. a horse and a cow,
there is no similarity of cognition. The bare fact of each
GOD, THE SOUL, AND MATTER 67
being in one aspect a cogniser would at most give merely
the bare recognition that there was a cogniser, but no
personal identity. A true permanent substance is, therefore,
essential, and such a substance explains far more effectively
than any other hypothesis such phenomena as desire,
memory, and pleasure and pain, while it is the indispensable
basis of merit and demerit.
This permanent entity is quite distinct from the body,
the senses, or cognition. The elements of the body are
seen to be without intelligence, and the combination of
such elements cannot produce intelligence. If, again, one
element alone had this nature, the others could not coalesce
with it to form a body. A dead body, which consists
of precisely the same material as the living body, contains
no intelligence. On the contrary, the fact that a body is an
organised whole suggests irresistibly the fact that it serves
the purpose of another which directs it, namely, the soul.
Such phrases as " I am fat," or " I go," are merely natural
transfers of use. On the other hand, the phrase " My body "
shows clearly that the ego and the body are different.
The same argument can be applied to the case of the
sense organs, but others are also available; thus the fact
that I feel with my hand what I see with my eyes shows
that there is something beyond the sense organs. Again, a
blind man remembers what he saw when his eyesight
remained, which would be impossible if the organ were the
self. More generally the analysis of any cognition reveals to
us the fact that the " I " is not the body, nor the sense organs
nor the cognition itself, but something over and beyond.
Many people can have the same cognition as far as content
is concerned, but each cognition has an individual refer
ence, as is seen also with perfect clearness in the facts of
memory; if there were no " I ", how could we have the fact
that one, who has learned half a lesson at one time, can
later on resume the task at the place at which he left off ?
The objection, that the terms " My soul " indicate a differ
ence between the " I " and the soul, is met by holding that
in the word "soul" the meaning "cognition" is to be
understood, cognition often being inaccurately described as
the soul. The result can be confirmed by the evidence
68 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
of the Samhitas and Brahmanas, the former of which
implicitly, the latter explicitly, recognise the existence of
the eternal soul.
There must, however, be something to mediate between
the eternal and omnipresent soul and the world, else its
knowledge would be eternal and omniscient, as emphati
cally it is not. The mediator is furnished by mind, whose
contact with the soul is the essential condition for its con
sciousness in all its forms. For this contact it is necessary
that mind should, in contrast to soul which is omnipresent,
be atomic, and possess the capacity of extremely rapid
motion, a fact which makes our experiences, even when
truly successive as they are, appear on occasion to be simul
taneous. Mind, however, can exist only in a body, which
the soul must ensoul, and then through it the soul comes into
contact with the outer world by means of the sense organs.
Through the contact of external objects with the sense
organs, mediated by the mind, the soul appreciates the outer
world ; the mind directly conveys to it knowledge of plea
sure, pain, desire, aversion and effort, which are among its
qualities. It possesses further qualities : cognition, which is
self cognised in the terminology of Prabhakara or, as
Kumarila has it, inferred ; merit and demerit, which are
inferred ; and impression (samskdra), which is produced
by apprehension and results in memory, from whose opera
tions it is inferred. The principle of impression, more
over, really applies to merit and demerit, for these exist in
the form of impressions of past activities, and can hardly
be said to be separate qualities, since they merely sum up
in terms of moral value the nature of the accumulated
impressions ; hence, though they appear as distinct elements
in the Nyaya-Vaisesika lists, one list of qualities attri
buted to Kumarila more logically leaves out merit and
demerit. Further, the soul possesses *he common qualities
of number, namely, unity ; individuality; dimension as
omnipresent as opposed to atomic, or of the same size
as the body as held by the Jains; and conjunction and
disjunction with mind. Nothing is more obscure than
this relation between the soul and the mind. It is said to
be brought about by merit and demerit, but it is obvious
GOD, THE SOUL, AND MATTER 69
that it is also affected by the activity of the soul, which is
never regarded as merely passive in its attitude to mind.
The impossibility of expressing the relationship intelligibly
is inherent in the effort to bridge the gulf between the
material and the immaterial worlds. But it is curious that,
as in the Nyaya-Vaisesika, there is no real attempt in the
Mlmamsa to explain in what way mind is active in the
processes of reasoning. It is obvious that inference, and
the other means of proof apart from sense perception, must be
due to the activity of mind in contact with the soul, but
insistence on the part of mind in the direct perception of
pleasure, pain, desire, aversion, and effort has apparently
resulted in obscuring the essential part which it must be
deemed to play in the higher mental activities, if for no
other reason than that they all rest, save verbal cognition
and negation, on sense perception as an ultimate basis, and
even verbal cognition and negation must be mediated to the
soul by mind.
The soul, then, with the aid of the mind, is the enjoyer
of all experience; the sense organs the instruments; the
objects, external or internal, the world and the qualities of
the soul; and the body is the abode of the sense organs and
the mind, through whose instrumentality the soul has experi
ence. Of bodies Prabhakara recognises three kinds only —
womb-born, egg-born and sweat-born — omitting, with some
Nyaya-Vaisesika authorities, the vegetable body, on the
ground that its possession of sense organs is not established,
despite the Jain views on this topic. None but earth bodies
are accepted by Prabhakara, though the Nyaya-Vaisesika
accepts the existence in other worlds of water bodies, fire
bodies and air bodies; this excludes the Vedanta view, which
finds in the body five or three elements or the variant which
admits of four only. The body, however, in any event is
essentially subservient to the soul, which acquires a body in
accordance with its past deeds; in what manner this is
accomplished neither Prabhakara or Kumarila tell us, for
in truth the problem is incomprehensible.
So far the views of Prabhakara and Kumarila seem to
be in general harmony, but there is a distinct discrepancy,
if not a very important one, in their view of the manner in
70 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
which the soul is cognised. In the view of Prabhakara the
cognition is self-illumined, but this doctrine is not applicable
to the soul. The Vedanta view, of course, insists on the
doctrine of self-illumination in the case of the cognition
and the soul as consciousness alike; Prabhakara objects that
in this case the soul must be present in consciousness
during the state of deep sleep no less than during the waking,
dreaming and fourth states, and, as all our consciousness
can be explained by hypothesis of the self-illumination of
cognition, it is needless to assume any other self-luminous
object. The Nyaya view, which makes the soul to be the
object of direct perception, as opposed to the Vaisesika
doctrine of the inferring of the soul, which is also found in
older Nyaya, is rejected by Prabhakara on the ground that
it serves to make the perceived also the perceiver, which is
in his view absurd, a position for which there is clearly
much better ground than in the cognate case of the denial
of the mental perception of cognition. The theory which
he adopts is, then, simply that in every cognition the soul
enters into the cognition as a necessary element, and, therefore,
in a sense the soul is cognised by the same means of valid
cognition as the objects which it knows. But, while the
soul is thus cognised, it is not cognised as a true object; it
is cognised as the agent in cognition, just as a man who walks
is the agent of walking, not the object. The soul, therefore,
is the substratum of the self-illumined cognition, into which it
enters in the element of " I," and this fact explains why in
deep sleep there is no self-consciousness, since at that time
there is no cognition, and the soul can be known only along
with a cognition. But the fact that there is no cognition
does not mean that there is no soul: consciousness is not, as
in the Vedanta, the essence of the soul, but a mere quality
of it, and in the state of liberation the soul remains eternally
existent, though by ceasing to have cognitions it ceases to be
cognised. While this view of the knowledge of the soul in
self-consciousness is ingenious and not unhappy, laying as
it does due stress on the necessary implication of the self in
consciousness, it is a little difficult to see why Prabha
kara did not admit that the soul was self-illumined, which
is certainly the natural interpretation of the Sabarabhasya
GOD, THE SOUL, AND MATTER 71
(p. 22). That terra seems to apply more readily to the soul
than to cognitions on his own theory, in which the cognition
seems really to be inferred, as it actually is held to be by
the school of Rumania.
How far Kumarila really differs from Prabhakara in
these views is not clear. He certainly is credited by such
texts as the Sdstradlpikd (p. 101) and the Sarvasiddhanta-
samgraha (VIII, 37) with the view that the self is the object
of direct perception by the mind, a view ascribed by the
Nydyamanjarl (p. 429) to the Aupavarsas,1 and this is
perhaps a legitimate deduction from the doctrine, which he
certainly held, that the existence of the self is established
through the notion of " I." The soul he holds to be the
substratum of the " I " element in cognition, and this
appears to be practically identical with Prabhakara's view
that the soul is the substratum of the self-illumined cogni
tion, and the " I " element in it. Kumarila, however,
adopts in the Tantravarttika2 the doctrine that the soul
is pure consciousness, though he distinguishes it from cogni
tion, but this characteristic is hardly more than a verbal
deviation from the view of Prabhakara, as far as practical
results go.
Prabhakara and Kumarila are agreed as to the fact of
there existing a multitude of separate souls, as is the neces
sary supposition of the Sutra and the theme of the Bhdsya.
The perception of another soul is obviously impossible, but
one sees the activities of other bodies, and infers thence that
they must be ensouled, just as one's own body is ensouled.
Thus, if a pupil has learned half his task in one day, the
fact that he continues to learn the next half the next day
is a good ground for assuming that he possesses a soul.
The same result can be arrived at from the fact that merit
and demerit are infinitely various, and not one, as they
must be if there were one soul only. The objection that
pain is felt as localised, though there is but one soul in the
body, is met by insisting that in reality the feeling is in the
soul, and it is only the cause of the pain which can be said
1 Cf. Mdnameyodaya , p. 80. But in Slokavdrttika, p 525 (vv.
142, 143), he seems to accept self-illumination from the Bhdsya.
» Trans., p. 516 ; so Slokavdrttika, p. 187 (v. 167),
72 THE KARMA-MIMAMSA
to be localised. The further Vedanta contention, that the
sun, though one, appears by reflection in different substances
to be endowed with diverse qualities, is also rebutted by the
observation that the qualities, which appear different, do not
really belong to the sun but to the reflecting medium. On this
analogy the different qualities appearing in connection with
the soul would belong to the bodies which are ensouled, and
this conclusion is manifestly contrary to fact, since cognition,
etc., are qualities, as we have seen, of soul, not of body. It
is characteristic, however, of the tendency to import Vedanta
conceptions into the Mimamsa that the Sarvasiddhanta-
samgraha (VIII, 39) asserts categorically that there is one
real supreme self, of which the individual selves are unreal
differentiations.
Such being the nature of the soul of man, his normal lot
is to continue in an unending cycle of lives, each determined
from the outset by his actions in previous lives, unless he
adopts the path which leads to freedom from this round of
existence. The process of this liberation is sketched by
Prabhakara ; first the man becomes disgusted by the troubles
which attend this mortal life; then he realises that even the
pleasures of this life are inseparable from pain, both in
their attainment and in their disappearance; accordingly he
devotes his mind to seeking final release from all worldly
things. To this end he abstains from all prohibited acts,
which lead to punishment hereafter, and also from all acts
which are undertaken for the purpose of attaining some
worldly or heavenly guerdon. He also exhausts the accumu
lated store of his merit and demerit by undergoing the
experiences which result thence. Finally he destroys
the receptacle of experience by the knowledge of the
soul, together with such concomitants as contentment,
self-restraint and so forth, all things enjoined by the
scriptures to prevent the return of the soul. When all this
is accomplished, then the achievement of release is brought
about. Prabhakara insists that, as the texts enjoin the know
ledge of the soul for no ulterior purpose, it must be understood
that the absence of rebirth is the reward of this knowledge.
Liberation thus consists in the cessation of the operation of
merit or demerit, and in total freedom from the body.
GOD, THE SOUL, AND MATTER 73
Liberation is purely negative in character; the soul exists as
a mere existence without cognition, and without either
pleasure or pain, both of which are essentially connected
with the presence of the soul in the body. The existence
thus achieved is thus like that attained in the view of the
Vaisesika, the condition enjoyed by a stone as the author of
the Sarvasiddhantasamgraha maliciously points out.
Rumania's views are largely in harmony with those of Pra-
bhakara; thus he holds that liberation cannot be supposed to
be bliss in any form, which is essentially transient and unreal.
But, consistently with the main aim of the Mimamsa, he
cannot admit that the Vedic texts, which seem to connect
freedom from return with knowledge of the soul, mean that
knowledge produces directly this result. This would con
flict with the criticisms urged by him against the Samkhya
that they erroneously hold that knowledge by itself can
terminate bondage; it is, on the contrary, only possible to
counteract the accumulated result of past deeds by working
off the consequences; the function of knowledge, therefore,
may prevent further accumulation of merit and demerit; it
cannot annul what has been accumulated. So Kumarila
attaches only an indirect value to knowledge of the self as a
factor in sacrificial performance; in the first place, it serves
to induce men to undertake sacrifices in cases where they
would not else be willing to do so, for they understand the
distinction of soul and body and the spiritual advantages
of sacrificing. In the second place, through such knowledge
men learn to perform the regular offerings, including not
merely the fixed offerings but those for special occasions and
penances, with the aim merely of avoiding the sin which
arises from non-performance, and without any desire for the
advantages accruing therefrom. It is agreed that men who
do not desire the results of such sacrifices do not obtain
them, a doctrine which, of course, is familiar in another
application from the Bhagavadglta. Thus, then, by this
means the actions of past lives are worked out, while
no new action is accumulated, and the man becomes
ready for final release in the shape of perpetual freedom
from corporeal attachment. The final condition, then, of
man will be the persistence of pure consciousness, but
74 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
without cognition or feeling of any sort. This view, though
in entire harmony with the Mimamsa, has suffered the usual
fate at the hands of the later texts,1 in which it is asserted
that the final condition of man is a state of constant bliss.
In what manner then does the performance of sacrifice
operate as affecting the soul? The Mimamsa in both
schools is confident that there is no question of rewards
coming from the deity to whom the offerings are made; no
deity is either eternal or omnipresent, and there could be no
assurance of it ever receiving the numerous offerings made
by diverse votaries, apart from the difficulty of the deity
conferring rewards. There must, therefore, be a capacity,
which does not exist prior to the sacrificial action, either in
the principal performance or in the agent, but which is
generated in the course of the performance. Before a man
performs a sacrifice, which will lead to heaven, there is an
incapacity in the offering and in the man himself to secure
that result, but, when he has performed it, he becomes, as
a result of the action, endowed with a potency, styled
Apurva, which in the course of time will secure for him the
end desired. The existence of this potency is testified to
in the scriptures; its necessity is apparent by the means of
proof known as presumption. We find in the Veda
assertions that sacrifices produce certain results, and, as the
operation of the sacrifice, as we see it, is transient, the
truth of the scripture would be vitiated if we did not accept
the theory of Apurva. Nor is there anything illogical in
the doctrine; every action sets in force activities in
substances or agents, and these come to fruition when the
necessary auxiliaries are present. The action specified is
called into existence by the injunction contained in the
form of an optative in a sentence in the Veda.
From this doctrine Prabhakara dissents, elaborating
instead a theory which is obviously a refinement on the
simple view which Kumarila accepts from the older writers
of the school and which best suits the Mimamsa Sutra.2 In
his opinion the injunction rests in the sentence as a whole,
1 Manameyodaya, p. 88.
2 II, 1, 1 ff ; Prakaranapancika, pp. J85 ff ; Tantravarttika,
II, 1, 1-$.
GOD, THE SOUL, AND MATTER 75
not in the optative verb, and he denies that from the action
there arises directly the Apurva. On the contrary, the
process is that the injunctive sentence lays down a mandate,
Niyoga; this excites the man to exertion, and this exertion
pertains to some form of action, indicated by the verb of
the injunctive sentence. The exertion produces in the agent
a result (kdrya) to which also the name of Niyoga is given
by Prabhakara, on the ground that it is this which acts as
an incentive to the agent to put forth exertion towards the
performance of the action denoted by the verb of the in
junctive clause. The Niyoga, however, is unable to produce
its result, unless aided by something which Salikanatha styles
fate, nor is it apparent that either in his terminology or
in his view of the process Prabhakara's doctrine is any
superior to that of Kumarila. It seems as if primarily it arose
from nothing more important than the observation that the
result produced in the agent was in one sense his motive to
action as much as the sentence directing the action to be done,
leading to a transfer of the term Niyoga, naturally applicable
to the sentence, to the condition in the agent to which the
more orthodox name of Apurva was usually applied.
In simple sacrifices there is only one Apurva produced, but
in more complicated sacrifices there may be several, as a rule
four. Thus in the new and full moon sacrifices, consisting
of two sets of three oblations at new and full moon respec
tively, there may be distinguished the Angapurva, pertaining
to the minor acts of the several oblations; the Utpattyapurva,
the result flowing from each of the three oblations in either
set; the Samudayapurva, the result of each group of three;
and the Phalapurva, the result of the whole performance re
garded as a unit. But it is not every action which brings
about an Apurva; those actions, which are devoted simply to
some material result, though a part of the sacrifice, such as
the appointment of priests or the threshing of corn, are not
credited with any such effect, as they serve an immediate
purpose and need no further explanation.
In the view of both schools there is a clear relation be
tween the injunction and the action of the agent; the former
possesses a verbal energy (sdbdl bhdvana} in its tendency to
produce action by the agent, while the latter puts forth
76 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
actual energy (drthl bhdvand} towards the end indicated in
the injunction.1
It is significant of the theistic tendency of Indian thought
that even the Miraarhsa was not exempt from transformation.
Despite its emphatic denial of the existence of a Supreme
Lord, the Sarvasiddhdntasamgraha (VIII, 40, 41) treats the
end of man as to be obtained by meditation upon, and wor
ship of, the Supreme_Spirit which is manifested in each man,
and authors, such as Apade va and Laugaksi Bhaskara, declare
that if the sacrifice is performed in honour of Govinda or
the creator, Isvara, it leads to the highest good, basing this
assertion on the authority of the Bhagavadgltd. Hence it is
easy to explain the tendency of such works as the Sesvara-
rnimdmsd of the polymath Venkatesa, where Vedanta tenets
are grafted on the Mimamsa. Gunaratna, in his comment
on the Saddarasanasamuccaya (p. 298) similarly attributes to
Jaimini acceptance of the Maya doctrine.
The question, however, arises, how far, in accepting views
of the future of the spirit, which are rejected by both
Prabhakara and by Kumarila, and in imparting a theistic
tinge to the doctrine, later texts relied on earlier authority,
now lost to us. It must be remembered that in the Vedanta
Siitra there are attributed to Jamini not merely views in
entire harmony with his principles, such as insistence (IV,
1, 17) on the fact that works bear their due fruit without
any divine intervention of any kind, but also opinions which
show him in the unexpected light of a true Vedantin, though
not of the orthodox doctrine of Samkara. Thus he is
credited with the view that the order in which a man must
pass through the various stages of life (dsramas) is fixed as
from lower to higher, and never vice versa, and as explain
ing away as metaphorical the assertion that the highest
spirit is a span in size. More precise light is thrown on
his doctrine by the fact that he adopted the view of the fate
of the soul on departing, by which it is ultimately led by a
spirit to Brahman, in the sense that the absolute Brahman is
meant, though Samkara argued, apparently against the
1 Mimamsanyayaprakasa (ed. Benares) pp. 1-22, 118-35 ; Ml-
niamsaparibhasd, pp. 25-30.
77
intention of the Vedanta Sutra (IV, 3, 7-14) that the refer
ence is to the lower Brahman, the soul passing to the higher
state only on the occurrence of the absorption of the lower
Brahman. In its final condition the soul possesses, accord
ing to Jaimini, all the qualities of the Brahman enumerated
in the Chdndogya Upanisad (VIII, 7) , together with omnipo
tence and omniscience, and further possesses a body and senses,
having the power of assuming many diverse forms. Though
this is not the view of Sarhkara(IV, 4, 5, 11) it can hardly
be imagined that Jaimini really regarded this condition as
pertaining to the soul merely preparatory to final absorption
in the Brahman; we may rather suppose that on this topic
his views were akin to those of Ramanuja, and perhaps
of Badarayana himself.
If we were to hold that the Jaimini of the Karma-
Mimamsa and the Jaimini of the Vedanta must be regarded
as enunciating one body of doctrine, we would be forced to
the admission that the later school of Mimamsa departed
from the principles of the founder of the doctrine by ignor
ing the fact that the Mimdmsd Sutra represented only one
side of his thought. But to accept this would probably be
to lay far too much stress on the traditional allocation of
doctrines; it is far more plausible to assume that the views
expressed in the Mimamsa do not represent one aspect of the
thought of an individual sage, but are the expression of the
doctrine of a school, which appealed to Jaimini and
Badarayana only so far as it thought fit to adopt or discuss
views of theirs. It would otherwise be altogether too
remarkable that of two authorities, who covered much the
same ground, we should have preserved the Sutra of one on
the doctrine of action, and the Sutra of the other on the nature
of the absolute, and in both cases the form of the Sutra is
decidedly unfavourable to the view that it is the production
of one definite author. The shadowy personalities of Jaimini
and Badarayana can hardly claim much more effective
reality than those of Gautama or Kanada, or even than
Kapila himself.
If, on the one hand, there was a tendency to adapt the
Mimamsa to theistic or pantheistic views, there was on the
other a steady process of degradation of the deities to whom
78 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
the offerings were supposed to be made. It can hardly be
assumed that these deities were not believed to be real by
the founders of the MImamsa. And there is nothing to show
that Jaimini did not accept their existence. But the later
doctrine, a_s evinced in such works as the Devatdsvarupavi-
cdra of Apadeva, does not accept the validity of the
descriptions of the deities given in the Puranas as showing
the existence of such beings ; these passages rank as mere
Arthavada ; the deity is merely that to which offering is
made, and has no existence beyond the Mantras addressed
to it.
THE RULES OF RITUAL
INTERPRETATION
WE have seen that Prabhakara and Kumarila establish
by their elaborate epistemological and metaphysical en
quiries precisely the same results as were more simply
accepted by Jaimini, the fact that duty or righteousness is
inculcated by the Veda in the form of injunctions, which are
to be carried out on the strength of the authority of that text
as uncreated and eternal. The task of Jaimini, in all save
the first Pada of Adhyaya I, is, therefore, to lay down the
principles which will enable men rightly to perform the
actions which the Veda enjoins, but which the vast extent of
the Vedic literature renders it difficult to determine. The
task falls essentially under two great heads; it is necessary
to determine precisely to what texts and in what degree
authority attaches, and it is requisite to classify systemati
cally the various forms of injunction with reference to the
actions which they enjoin. Both duties are performed,
though occasionally in somewhat haphazard manner, in the
Sutra; the more important one, the investigation of injunc
tion, forms the main topic of many later works, while the
compendia usually cover more or less adequately the whole
field. The details of the discussions have necessarily little
general value; they deal with incidents of sacrifices, which
flourished only in the early days of the history of the
Mlmarhsa, and in many cases the labour devoted to their
investigation cannot but seem to us mis-spent. On the other
hand, the principles of interpretation developed are often
both valuable and interesting as examples of logical analysis.
Of the Vedic texts the Brahmanas afford the immediate
material for the extraction of the injunctions which are the
80 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
essential part of the Veda, but they contain also passages
which cannot be treated as dealing with either positive or
negative injunctions, and are classed either as explanatory
matter, Arthavada, or name, Namadheya. The Arthavada
(I, 2, 1-30) at first sight seems not to be entitled to authority,
but Kumarila and Prabhakara alike defend its validity, the
latter against the charge that such sentences are inexpressive,
since they are not construed with injunctive verbal forms.
The value of the Arthavada, both hold, lies in it either
extolling desirable, or censuring forbidden, acts; it thus
comes into immediate connection with injunction or prohi
bition. Hence it follows that, in cases where it might be
possible to extract from an Arthavada an injunction, it is
needless to do so, the passage being adequately explained if
it remains eulogistic of some action already enjoined.
Arthavadas may be variously divided, but the simplest
division is into three classes : the first is where in contradic
tion of some other means of proof a quality is asserted to exist,
as in " The post is the sun," which serves to extol the
brilliance of the post. Or it may merely reiterate a truth
known otherwise, as in " Agni is a protection from the cold."
Or it merely may refer to something which has happened,
neither contradicted by other means of proof nor already
known.
The case of name (I, 4, 1-16) is far more obscure; dis
cussions regarding it usually turn on one or other of the
sentences udbhidd yajeta pasukdmah, " he who desires
cattle should sacrifice with the udbhid " ; citrayd yajeta
pastikdmah, "with the citrd "; agnihotram juholi, "he offers
the Agnihotra"; and syenendbhicaran yajeta, "he who
practices witchcraft should offer the syena sacrifice." It
seems at least plausible to suppose that the subdivision
owes its creation to the practical necessity of dealing with a
limited number of obscure sacrificial terms, but was later
extended into a wider area. In the developed theory,1 the
justification of the classification of name is given as follows.
Each word in the injunction must be brought into effective
Thibaut, Arthasathgraha, pp. xii, xiii ; MimamsanyayaprakaSa,
pp. 85 ff.
RULES OF RITUAL INTERPRETATION 81
relation to the energy in the agent excited by the injunction.
The energy requires a result to be achieved, an instrument
wherewith to achieve it, and an indication of the procedure
to be followed. The last requisite is furnished by various
subsidiary injunctions, the instrument and the object are
given by the verb yajeta and the qualification pasukdmah,
which may be reduced to ydgena pasum bhdvayet, " he
should effect or realise cattle by the use of the sacrifice."
It remains to dispose of ndbhidd, and, various other sugges
tions as to how it should be taken (e.g. as denoting a spade)
being rejected, the conclusion is arrived at that it merely
serves to limit the idea expressed by ydgena, is only a name,
and thus deserves a separate place in the classification of
texts.
Distinct from the Brahmana is the Mantra (I, 2, 31-53)
of which no effective definition is attempted in the texts.1
The Mantras are divided into the Re, Saman and Yajus,
according as they are recited, sung, or muttered, usually in a
low tone, though some of the Yajus Mantras, the Nigadas,
are said out aloud; the Yajus is usually held to be unmet-
rical, though with small accuracy. Mantras do not lay down
injunctions, but in the main they serve to denote something
of value in connection with injunctions, especially the deity
to whom offering is to be made. The tendency to find this
characteristic is much overdone in the MImamsa, though
even it is compelled to recognise now and then that a
Mantra must be regarded as merely of a eulogistic character,
or even that it is destined to have some supernatural fruit.
The MImariisa position is, of course, an inevitable result of
eliminating the goodwill of the deity as a real factor in the
sacrifice ; the hymns with which their authors intended to
confer pleasure on the gods become a somewhat cumbrous,
and not altogether useful, part of the sacrificial apparatus.
Apropos of the Mantras of the Yajus type, however, the
MImamsa develops some sensible rules of construction
(II, 1,46-49), rendered necessary by the fact that, while the
metre in the case of the Re and the song in the case of the
Saman determined the extent of the Mantra, the Yajus
1 Mlmathsabalapr akdsa , pp. 58-70; Mtmdmsdparibhdsa, p. 40.
6
82 THE KARMA-MIMAMSA
Mantras were recorded in long paragraphs, with no obvious
mechanical dividing marks. These principles are that of
syntactical unity (ekavdkyatd) ; those words must be taken
together which, when so united, form a single idea, or, as
Prabhakara puts it, to suit his theory of injunction, express
a single purpose, and which, taken apart, are not expressive
of any idea or purpose. Secondly, there is admitted the
principle of syntactical split (vakyabheda) , which permits
us to break up what else might be taken as a single sentence
into parts, each of which must contain a single idea. But
this expedient is permissible only when there is a clear
Vedic injunction to make the split, or when no other con
struction is really possible, for otherwise the error is com
mitted of multiplying Apurvas resulting from Mantras.
None the less it is a necessary procedure in cases where it is
made clear in any way that there are distinct acts to be
accompanied by Mantras; "Pleasant I make this seat
for thee ; sit upon it " (T.B. Ill, 7, 5, 2) would primd facie
be one Mantra, but, as it is intended to serve the double
purpose of accompanying the act of making the seat for the
cake, and setting it down, it must be taken as two. Thirdly,
there is the principle of extension (anusanga), which
denotes that it is often necessary in the case of Mantras to
supply with several sets of words a clause which follows the
last of these sets only, and which might thus be deemed to
belong to it alone.
Authority, however, is not confined to the Vedic Sarhhitas
and the Brahmanas. It is extended to the Smrtis, in which
term Kumarila1 includes primarily the Itihasas, Puranas,
and the Smrti of Manu, these being works which claim
universal application. The Itihasas and Puranas he deems
to contain injunctions based on Vedic authority and much
Arthavada, but he admits that there are also injunctions
arising from mere worldly considerations, passages useful
only to give pleasure, and other extraneous matter ; the
hymns to deities serve to secure a transcendental result.
They serve as wholes the useful purpose of instructing men
1 Tantravarttika, trans, pp. 25. 112 ff, 244. The Sutra (I, 3, 1-7,
11-14) never mentions the word Smrti and the commentators differ
widely in their versions.
RULES OF RITUAL INTERPRETATION 83
of very various capacity and knowledge. In the case of the
Smrtis proper only five alternatives are available: either they
are completely erroneous, which is impossible, as these works
are obviously useful and men are not so foolish as to believe
nonsense ; or they are due to personal observation, which
cannot be accepted; or they rest on tradition, which would
give no assurance of validity; or they are deliberately
intended to deceive, which is incredible for lack of motive
and probability of success; or, finally, they represent lost
Vedic tradition. For this decision there can be adduced a
certain corroboration in the fact that for certain statements
in Smrtis we can find confirmation in Vedic texts, whence we
can assume that other statements were also derived from texts,
now unhappily lost to us. Thus part of the Smrtis is derived
from the Veda, part from ordinary motives of life, and the
story material is Arthavada, as in the Itihasas and Puranas.
The view of Prabhakara1 is not essentially different; he
also accepts the inference of Vedic authority, but expressly
negates it in the case of Smrtis which do not prescribe
or prohibit any course of action, for example, statements
that plants have souls, which contradicts his own denial of
vegetable bodies. Both schools again agree (I, 3, 15, 16)
in accepting as valid the Smrtis of such ^authors as
Gautama, Vasistha, Baudhayana, Apastamba, Sankha and
Harita, despite the occurrence in them of passages laying
down certain customs as practised by persons in the east,
and so on, a fact which apparently contradicts the universa
lity of the Vedic injunction. The decision of the schools is
that their injunctions are truly universal, and even the Veda
lays down certain practices as to be performed by certain
classes only, for instance, the Rajasuya is a sacrifice for
kings only.
The Vedangas, or subsidiary treatises bearing on Vedic
pronounciation, ritual, grammar, etymology and astronomy,
are also admitted to rest in part on Vedic tradition, and the
Mimamsa and philosophic treatises generally are permitted
to share in Vedic authority ; thus Kumarila2 assures us that
1 Prakaranapancika, pp. 100, 101, 150,
'' Slokav&rttika, p. 267 (v. 201).
84 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
the Buddhist denial of the external world was not really
meant to be taken as a serious contradiction of its reality,
but to divert men's minds from undue attention to it, and
so with other apparently erroneous tenets. In the case of the
ritual Sutras the claim is made by some that they must be
treated as true Veda themselves, but this is denied, for they
have human authors, and are merely, like Smrtis, based on
Vedic authority. In the case of grammar, however, a really
interesting discussion is raised on the Sutra (I, 3, 4-30) by
those who deny that it can be made out to rest on Vedic
authority, and who go so far as to challenge the validity of
the claims of the grammarians to be authoritative.
The argument of these unorthodox persons runs : words
like gavi, in lieu of the grammarians' gauh, for cow are
perfectly correct; they are fully expressive, they are percept
ible by the ear, they are as eternal as any word is, and no
beginning in time for them can be traced. The science of
grammar, too, has no Vedic connection; it differs in no way
from the process of explaining vernacular words for everyday
use; it does not deal with actions which are the sole business
of the Veda; it serves no useful purposes in relation to duty, as
we do not need grammar to tell us the meanings of words;
nor is grammar the source of usage, since, on the contrary,
it rests upon and follows usage. The reply of the Mimarhsa
is not convincing; it maintains that synonyms are not
permissible, unless enjoined by Vedic use; as gauh
expresses exactly the meaning " cow," any variant of it is
wrong and undesirable, and has such power of denotation as
it may actually possess, merely because of its similarity to
gauh and not in its own right. The science of grammar also
is essential to set out in orderly derivation the vast masses
of words in the Vedas; moreover, not usage alone, but usage
and grammar determine whether a word has the correct form
to convey the meaning, and grammar in the last issue is
more authoritative than mere usage. That correct words
produce, when used, a transcendental result is proved by the
fact that the Veda enjoins their use, and forbids the use of
barbarous expressions; moreover, truth leads to supreme
bliss, and the use of correct words is truth in speech.
Fortunately this disquisition does not prevent either Prabha-
RULES OF RITUAL INTERPRETATION 85
kara or Kumarila (I, 3, 10) from agreeing that, when the
Veda uses a barbarous word, it is to be interpreted in the
sense barbarian usage accords to it, in lieu of attempting to
foist upon it an etymological sense.1
The relation of Smrti authority to the Veda, in cases
where there appears to be conflict, is the subject of
divergence of opinion between Prabhakara and Kumarila.
In the view of the former, which is apparently that of
iheMimdmsd Sutra (I, 3,3-4), if a Smrti contradicts a Vedic
passage, the former loses all authority, while, even in the
case of Smrti passages which do not thus offend, it may be
impossible to accord their injunctions any spiritual value,
if they seem to be due to the avarice of the priests, as
when the giving of the cloth from the sacrificial post to a
priest is enjoined by Smrti authority. Kumarila, however,
with his greater regard for tradition, reduces, as far as
possible, cases of contradiction to mere instances where
alternatives are permissible, and only holds that the Sutra
recommends in the case of such alternatives the adoption of
that which has direct, and not merely inferred/Vedic authority.
Below the Smrtis in value comes the practice of good
men (I, 3, 8-9) or custom (I, 3, 15-23) on the simple
ground that, while both must go back to Vedic authority to
be valid, the former goes more directly to the fountainhead.
In addition, however, to Smrti and practise must be reckon
ed as sources of knowledge of duty the implications contained
in Vedic texts, which may be deduced by us from them, even
if not already set out in Smrtis or by tradition.
The essential function of all these sources is to give us
knowledge of injunctions (vidhi), and injunctions are encite-
ments to actions. Actions may be classified in various ways;
there is a clear distinction between Vedic and worldly actions,
with the former alone is the Mimamsa concerned. Actions
of this type may be classed as positive, as negative (pratise-
dha), or as partaking of both characters (paryuddsa), as in
1 Kumarila enlivens the discussion by giving a long list of errors in
grammar committed even by grammarians, and similarly diversifies
(I, 3, 7) his exposition of the practice of the good by an account of
crimes attributed to gods and sages. On grammar, cf. Nyayamanjari,
pp. 412-26.
86 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
the case of a vow not to look at the sun taken by a student.
Of actions1 the sacrificial are the most important, falling
under the three main classes of Yaga, the offering to a deity
of a substance; Homa, the offering of a substance in fire or
water; and Dana, the waiver of one's ownership of an object
in favour of a third party. Sacrifices, again, can be divided
according as they serve as archetypes only, like the Agni-
hotra, or as derivatives (vikrti), like the Masagnihotra, or
as both, like the victim for Agni and Soma, based on the new
and full moon sacrifice and itself a model for the offering
at the Soma pressing; or as neither, like the Darvihoma, for
special reasons given in the Sutra. More important is the
division by purpose; the Nitya sacrifices must constantly be
performed at the due seasons ; the Naimittika must be per
formed on certain special occasions, as the Jyotis offering
on the approach of spring, while the Kamya offerings are
optional, being undertaken by a man who desires some
special end, as in the case of the Karlristi performed to
obtain rain.
The direction to perform an offering is laid down in an
originating injunction (utpattividhi) or an injunction of
application (viniyogavidhi), according as the matter concerned
is a principal or a subordinate offering. In either case, it
is frequently necessary to ascertain precisely how many
actions are prescribed, and six rules for this purpose are
laid down by the Mlmarhsa (II, 2 and 3). Difference in
words is one clear indication, especially in the case of the
verb, which is the most important part of a sentence of in
junction; the repetition of the verb indicates distinct offer
ings; the mention of a definite number of oblations is clear
evidence; other sources are the difference of names, of
materials to be used, and of context. In the case of the last
item it is agreed that the occurrence of the same offering in
two different recensions of one text, as in the case of the
Kanva and Madhyarhdina texts of the Satapatha Brdhmana,
does not constitute a diversity of context.
The originating injunctions are few in number, relating
as they do to the principal Vedic offerings only, such as the
1 MimamstibalaprakaSa, pp. 81 ff ; Mitnaiiisdparibhasa, pp. 17 ft.
RULES OF RITUAL INTERPRETATION 87
Agnihotra, the new and full moon sacrifices, the Soma
sacrifice, and so forth. It might have been expected that
there would have been made some effort to systematise these
offerings, but no trace of any attempt to effect this end is
seen in the MImamsa, which accepts the sacrifices from the
sacrificial tradition. It is true that there is a certain degree
of order of progress from the simpler to the more complex,
but this order is not absolute, being broken by the necessity
of performing the Naimittika offerings on the occurrence of
the special occasions which evoke them. Nor is there any
principle discernible in the rewards attainable by these
offerings ; they include such material things as wealth,
usually in cattle, children, long life, rule, and, most frequently
of all, heaven, which is held, on what is known as the
Visvajit principle (IV, 3, 10-16), to be the reward promised
in any case in which no specific boon is laid down.
The originating injunctions, however, do no more than
excite in the mind of the hearer the desire to perform the
action which they enjoin, generally in the form of a
sacrifice ; it remains for other injunctions, those of appli
cation, to denote the exact manner of procedure (itikar-
tavyata), by specifying the numerous subsidiary actions
requisite, and the materials and other necessaries for the
performance. The discrimination between what is principal
and what is subsidiary (sesa) occupies the greater part of
the attention of the MImamsa, and it stands in a close
relation to the motive for the performance of the various
actions. Actions may be undertaken according to the Sutra
(IV, 1, Iff), followed by Sabarasvamin, Prabhakara, and
Kumarila, either for the sake of the agent (purusartha) , or
for the sake of the offering (kratvartha) , while Partha-
sarathi adds a third class of those which are neither for
the one purpose or the other, giving as an instance" the
Agnyadhana, or piling of the sacred fire. This innovation
seems to be without warrant ; the original distinction corres
ponds roughly to that between principal and subordinate
actions ; the new and full moon offerings serve to benefit
man by producing a due reward, while the fore-offerings,
which form part of them, are merely subsidiary to the
sacrifice ; materials normally are subsidiary to the sacrifice,
88 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
any good results mentioned being treated as merely Artha-
vada, though on occasions a thing like curds, which serves as
an element in offerings, may be used to make efficient the
sense organs of the sacrificer, and thus to serve for his
benefit. The last instance shows that the correspondence
between actions for the benefit of the agent and principal
actions is by no means complete.
The question of what things can be subsidiary is the
subject of an elaborate investigation; according to Badari's
opinion, cited in the Mlmdmsd Sutra (III, 1,3), the only
subsidiaries are substances, accessories, namely, the Mantras
and the deities, and purificatory actions, such as the thresh
ing of corn. To this list Jaimini adds actions or sacrifices
generally, results, and agents. The distinction between the
two sets, according to the Vrttikara, whom Sabarasvamin
cites, is that the first three classes are essentially in their
nature subsidiary, while the latter three are in one sense
principal, in another subsidiary. Thus the sacrifices are
principal with reference to the materials, but subsidiary to
the result; the result is principal with reference to the
sacrifice, but subsidiary towards the agent; the agent, again,
is principal with regard to the result, but subsidiary to such
acts as the measuring of the sacrificial post, which is to be
related to his height. From another point of view the agent
may be said to be subsidiary to the sacrifices, since it is to
perform them that he acts.
Prabhakara1 divides the subsidiaries into four classes,
according to the heads of class (jati), quality, substance,
and actions, denoted by verbs (bhdvdrthdtmaka) . The last
head he divides into those actions which are directly con
ducive to the fulfilment of the sacrifice (samnipatyopakd-
raka), and those which are more distantly conducive to this
result (arddupakdraka). The former he classifies in four
divisions; the bringing into existence (utpatti) of some
object, as the production of dough by kneading the corn;
the obtaining (prdpti) of. a substance already in existence,
such as milk; the modification (vikrti) of a substance, as of
1 Prakaranapancikd, pp. 202 ff; cf. MimdmsanyayaprakaSa, pp.
62-67, where the division is twofold, siddha and kriya.
RULES OF RITUAL INTERPRETATION 89
ghee by boiling; and the purification (samskrti) of substance,
such as the sprinkling of water over corn. These actions
are all subservient to the sacrifice, and to the Apurva, which
is produced by the sacrifice; they have no distinct Apurvas
of their own. On the other hand, the indirect auxiliaries have
Apurvas of their own, though some, as for instance the drink
ing of milk by the sacrificer at the Jyotistoma, have also a seen
result. In the case, however, of such a sentence as, "He
offers to Tanunapat," no effect on the substance offered or
the human agent is obvious, and we are bound to assume an
Apurva appertaining to the action by itself, which is sub
sidiary and auxiliary to the Apurva of the sacrifice as a whole.
But Kumarila, who contents himself with a simpler division
of all subsidiaries into the two classes of direct and indirect,1
goes much further in seeking to recognise subsidiary Apur
vas. He postulates an Apurva for every injunction, instead
of merely for injunctions of principal actions and such
others as cannot be disposed of by any other means, and
thus, while he does not assert that there is in the directly
auxiliary acts themselves an Apurva, he holds that there is
an Apurva in the fact that a choice has been made of the
particular mode of action, e.g. in selecting the mode of
thumping as the proper manner of cleansing the grain.
In dealing with injunctions of application there are six
means by which the relations of subordination of actions,
etc., may be determined (III, 2 and 3). The first and
most important indication is express declaration; thus, if
the injunction is given to use in honour of the Garhapatya
fire a Mantra to Indra, this declaration (sruti) prevails
over the normal conclusion that a verse to Indra must
come in a ceremony in his honour. Second in importance
is indirect implication (linga); thus it is a rule in the
Soma sacrifice that the juice used is to be consumed; when,
therefore, a Mantra (T.S. Ill, 2, 5, 1) is found which seems
merely to refer to the drinking, it must be assumed that it
covers by its reference to drinking all the operations
connected with that action, such as the taking up of the
potion, examining it, drinking it, and digesting it. Thirdly,
1 Sdstradipikd, pp. 202, 203 ; Mimdmsdparibhdsd, pp. 16 ff.
90 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
syntactical connection is of value; thus, in one passage
(£.B. IV, 4, 6, 16-18) we are able to decide that Re and
Yajus mean the Rgveda and the Yajurveda, and not, as
might else be thought, metrical and prose Mantras, because
of the syntactical connection with the immediately preced
ing words. Fourthly, context (prakarana) is of great
importance; we have the general injunction that one should
perform the new and full moon sacrifices, and the injunction
to offer to Tanunapat; this principle enables us to find a
purpose for the latter offering in connection with the former
sacrifices; mere syntactical connection would not here help,
as the sentences stand apart and are in themselves quite
complete. Fifthly, order (krama) or position (sthana) is
of service; thus in one passage (T.S. I, 6, 2, 4) occur three
Mantras without indication of use; we can, however, by
finding that elsewhere three offerings are enjoined in
connection with these Mantras, assume that the order of the
sacrifices and the Mantras is to correspond, one being used
with each offering in order. Finally, names (samdkhyd)
may supply information else wanting; thus Mantras, not
otherwise identified, by being styled Hautra are known to
fall within the sphere of the Hotr priest. Each of these
means for adequate reasons is deemed to be of more value
than the preceding, and in working out the principle in
detail the Mimarhsa shows both skill and acumen, even
when we admit that in many cases its reasonings were
guided by the fact that a certain usage had become regular,
and therefore that the sound conclusion was already given
by customary practice.
While these injunctions of application determine the
exact mode in which the ceremonies prescribed in the origi
nating injunctions are to be performed, the order of the
actions is prescribed by injunctions of performance (viniyoga-
vidhi). On this point, however, there is a difference of view
between Prabhakara and Kumarila (V, 1) ; the latter
admits readily the existence of injunctions determining the
order of performance by the process of extracting such
directions from injunctions of application. Prabhakara,
however, insists that an injunction of application cannot be
deemed to deal with order, which is a matter of indifference,
RULES OF RITUAL INTERPRETATION 91
so long as an act is performed, but even he admits that a
few cases occur in which the order of offerings is specially
defined. As a rule, however, the order is left to be deter
mined by minor indications. Thus it may be directly
enjoined, or the order of the mention of the offerings may
be decisive, or the order of the natural actions may be
resorted to; thus the gruel must be cooked before the Agni-
hotra is offered, although the text mentions the latter first.
Again, the order of commencement is of importance; in the
Vajapeya there are seventeen victims to be immolated; the
offerer may begin with any one, but the different acts must
l)e done to each following the initial order adopted. Posi
tion, again, is of importance; thus in the Agnistoma there are
three animal victims, one to Agni and Soma offered on the
day before the sacrifice, the Savanlya on the day of the
pressing of the Soma, and a barren cow on the final day.
In the Sadyaskra, a modification of the Agnistoma, the
three victims are to be offered on one day, that of the press
ing; hence, as this is properly the day of the Savanlya
victim, it is to be offered first, followed by that for Agni and
Soma, and the barren cow. Lastly, the order of the
principal actions prevails over that of subordinate actions;
thus at the new moon sacrifice the preliminaries for the
offering to Indra are performed before those of the offering
to Agni, but the offering to Agni comes before that to Indra :
accordingly, in the performance of subsequent rites, it is
those connected with Agni that take precedence over those
connected with Indra. In cases where none of these means
give a clear result, any order may be resorted to, and so with
offerings performed independently to obtain worldly goods.
Nor is there any fixed order between the Soma sacrifices and
the simpler rites known as Istis.
There remains the question of the right to perform
sacrifices, which forms the subject of a set of injunctions
relating to qualification (adhikaravidhi). Jaimini, it
seems, took a generous view of the position of woman, con
templating (VI, 1, 6-8) her as a performer of sacrifices,
though, in the case of her being married, both she and her
husband must co-operate in offering, and the Vedic Mantras
would be recited by him only. Sabarasvamin already
92 THE KARMA-MIMAMSA
emphasises the disability of women arising from their
ignorance of the Veda, which is not asserted by Jaimini,
who doubtless reflects the older usage. Sudras are excluded
(VI, 1, 26,33) from sacrificing for this very reason of ignor
ance of the Veda, and in the later texts the admission of
women even to a qualified share of the sacrifice is thus
anomalous. Some small amount of means is also requisite
in a sacrificer, and he must not be incapacitated by disease.
Further details are given in the Srauta Sutras, which recog
nise, like Jaimini, the case of certain classes who can take
some part in sacrifice though not of the three higher classes,
such as the Rathakara. In the case of Sattras only
Brahmans of the Visvamitra family studying the same Kalpa
Sutra are qualified to act; all act as sacrificers, and each
individually obtains the whole benefit of the sacrifice, instead
of it being shared collectively. Moreover, while the death
of an ordinary sacrificer destroys the rite, in the case of a
Sattra the place of any one incapacitated can be taken by
another priest, who, however, obtains no share of the result.
Only Brahmans again can eat the remnants of sacrifice, so
that, if a Ksatriya has a Soma sacrifice performed for him,
he must be given to drink a substitute for Soma remnants.
On the other hand, the threefold duty of sacrifice to the
gods, of Vedic study as payment of debts to the Rsis, and of
the begetting of children as a debt to the Fathers, is incum
bent on all these classes, not merely on those who may wish
to attain the benefits of these actions (VI, 2, 31). Again he
only may perform the Visvajit (VI, 7) who can afford a fee
of 1,200 gold pieces, but, when he is bidden to give up all in
it, that applies only to his riches, not to, e.g. his parents, and
of his riches there are excluded lands, horses, and slaves in
personal attendance, while the 1,000 years of performance is
interpreted as so many days.
In addition to these divisions according to content
injunctions can be classified on the basis of the knowledge
already possessed by the agent of the mode of performance
or actions possible.1 Thus an original injunction (apurva-
1 Kumarila on Mlmamsa Sutra, I, 2, 42 ; Arthasamgraha, pp. 17,
18 ; Mlmamsaparibhasa, pp. 10-12, 41.
RULES OF RITUAL INTERPRETATION 93
vidhi) is one which enjoins something otherwise unknown,
as when a direction is given that grains are to be washed.
A restrictive injunction (niyamavidhi} serves to fix as alone
valid one out of several possible means of carrying out
such an action, such as the husking of grain, which an
injunction requires to be performed by pounding. An
injunction of limitation or exclusion (parisamkhyavidhi)
precludes one of several alternatives which otherwise might
be resorted to; thus the injunction, "Five animals among
animals with five nails may be eaten," precludes the eating
of any animals not having that adornment. In this case the
preclusion is implied, in other cases it may be explicit.
While an injunction directs a positive act, a prohibition
(nisedha) serves to turn a man away from performing the
action expressed in the verb and its object. The prohibition
does not lead to any desirable result such as heaven; it
serves none the less a useful purpose; the man, who obeys
the direction not to eat the mysterious Kalanja, by observing
this taboo escapes the hell which else had been his fate. In
the technical phraseology of the Mimamsa the negative applies
not to the sense of the verb, but to the optative affix; as an
optative urges us to action, so a negatived optative turns
away from it. In certain cases, however, this normal con
dition of affairs is precluded, and the negative is immediately
connected with the verbal sense. Of these the most
important is the case (IV, 1, 3-6) of negative passages
headed, " His vows are as follows." The Brahmacarin is
under an obligation not to look at the sun as a vow; the
force of this is not that he is to avoid the evil result of
looking, for there is no such result, but, as the context
indicates, he is to effect the destruction of evil by the
resolution of not-looking at the sun. A similar mode of
interpreting an apparent prohibition is seen in the case of
the rule, " He should say, ' Ho, we sacrifice,' at the begin
ning of all sacrificial verses, but not at the Anuyaja
offerings." The reason for this procedure is that, if the
rule were regarded as a prohibition proper, then it would
necessarily follow that there was an antecedent rule enjoin
ing the action, since a prohibition implies a previous rule to
the opposite effect, and, this being so, the result of the
94 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
prohibition would not be what was desired, since, owing to
the equal validity of all Vedic sentences, the only result
would be to make the action optional. Thus, instead of a
prohibition, we have what is technically styled a Paryudasa,
and the sense of the rule is that the words, " Ho, we
sacrifice," which are uttered with the sacrificial verses, are
to be uttered with those verses only which do not occur in
Anuyajas.
These are the main topics, which, with numerous excur
sions into subsidiary detail, fill Padas II-IV of Adhyaya
I and Adhyayas II-VI of the Mlmdmsd Sutra, The
next two Adhyayas deal with the transfer of details from
the archetype to sacrifices whose form is derived from
it, a discussion rendered necessary by the fact that in
the Brahmanas there are many cases in which it is
presumed that the details of one offering will be supplied
from another, as in the often-quoted case of the Isu
offering which is based on the Syena. The transference
(atidesa) applies not merely to the mode of performance,
but to materials and other details.1 It is regulated by-
context (prakarana) or position; thus the Isu offering
follows the Syena model, because they are enjoined in the
same context. The rule of position again lays it down that
the deity of the original offering is to take the same place
in the transferred offering, and the offering material is
also to be transferred. Transfer takes place by express
injunction, as in the case of the Isu offering; by implied
injunction, as in the case of the offering to Surya, which is
based on the new and full moon offerings; by mention of
the name of a sacrifice, as in the case of the Masagni-
hotra, which is made in accordance with the Agnihotra; or
by mention of the name of a purification (samskara), as
when, the Avabhrtha being mentioned at the Varunapraghasa,
it is performed like the Avabhrtha, or concluding bath, of
the Agnistoma where the rite is purificatory.
The process of transfer, however, frequently involves
modifications (iiha) in the Mantras used to accompany the
rites, in order to adapt them to the change of circumstance.
1 PrakaranapancikS, p. 227 (v. 13).
RULES OF RITUAL INTERPRETATION 95
Elaborate rules are accordingly given in Adhyaya IX
of the Sutra on this head. Nor only Mantras are altered,
but also Samans ; thus at the Vaisyastoma the Kanvarathan-
tara replaces the orginal Brhat and Rathantara Samans.
In some cases purifications are modified; thus the wild rice
(nivara) used at the Vajapeya offering, in place of the
ordinary rice, is subjected to the processes of purification
applicable to the latter. In other cases Mantras are not
altered, but the number of times of their use is modified.
In other cases the transference must be accompanied by
the annulment of details which are now inappropriate.
The cases in which this occurs, enumerated in Adhyaya X,
are numerous and complicated; thus an act may by change
be rendered useless; in the Prajapatya rite, based on the
new and full moon sacrifices, grains of gold replace rice
grains, and the operations of husking and washing are
therefore annulled. Again, if Yajus Mantras are given to
be recited as Nigadas, which are invitations and therefore
must be said aloud, the normal rule of muttering of Yajus
Mantras is annulled in favour of the necessary loud
utterance. Annulment, again, may be partial or complete,
arid the later text books take special pleasure in developing
the diverse forms in which it may appear. Opposed to
annulment is combination (samuccaya) in which the new
details of the derivative form are only added to the details
of the original offering.
In Adhyaya XI the question is raised of th? relation
of subsidiary to principal offerings as regards repetition of
performance. In certain cases a single performance of
subsidiaries gives effective aid to more than one principal
action, as in the case of the Agnyadhana, which need
only once be performed, the same consecrated fire serving
for all subsequent sacrifices; this aid is styled Tantra.
On the other hand, some subsidiaries must be repeated with
each principal offering ; thus the subsidiaries of the rites
performed at new and full moon respectively in those offer
ings are nearly the same, but the lapse of time between the
two rites renders the repetition of the subsidiaries essential ;
this case is styled Avapa. But in some cases where a sub
sidiary is merely performed for the purpose of aiding one
96 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
principal operation, it may nonetheless aid also another
principal operation; thus the fore-offerings for the victim to
Agni and Soma at the Soma sacrifice serve for the cake
offering also, and, if an altar has been made ready for a
Soma sacrifice, the sacrificer may perform an Isti with it, if
he will. This form is termed Prasanga.
Finally, in Adhyaya XII the topic of options (vikalpa)
is disposed of ; options are of many kinds,1 indicated by
reasoning, or by direct declaration, or depending on the
wish of the agent ; nineteen subdivisions of each type are
made, of which eight depend on the option furthering the
performance of the rite, and eleven on its bringing about
some benefit for the agent. By another principle of divi
sion options are classed as limited or fixed (vy avast hit a)
and unlimited (avyavasthita) , each class again being sub
divided according as it rests on reasoning or declaration.
But options as a rule are open to many objections, though
this defect does not apply either to fixed options, or to those
which depend on the will of the agent. The subjects to
which options may apply are most varied, the use or non-use
of certain Mantras, preference for one colour or another,
the choice of kinds of grain, mode of action, and so forth.
1 MimamsabdlaprakaSa, p. 152 ; Mlmamsaparibhasa, pp. 41-44
VI
THE MIMAMSA AND HINDU LAW
THE fact that the MImamsa is an investigation of texts
in order to evolve an orderly system for their interpretation
as a harmonious whole brings it immediately into contact
with legal interpretation, and the parallel is made the closer
in that the chief object of the MImamsa is to determine
injunctions, which are distinct from those of civil law mainly
in the fact that they deal with sacrificial rather than civil
obligations, and are enforced by spiritual rather than temporal
penalties. Thus as early as the Dharma Sutras of Vasistha
and Baudhayana we find that skill in the Mlmarhsa was con
sidered a qualification for membership of a Parisad, to
which the settlement of disputed questions of law was
entrusted. The same rule reappears in Manu and in other
Dharmasastras, and Kulluka at the outset of his commentary
on Manu expressly states that he proposes to follow the
MImamsa principles as the appropriate method of interpre
tation. The first known commentator on Manu whose work
has reached us is Medhatithi, who shows himself an adept
in the Mimamsa principles, and whose date is most probably
to be placed in the ninth or tenth century A.D. The close
association of Mimamsa and law is shown in the works of
Madhava who wrote an exposition of the Parasara Smrti, in
those of Dinakara,1 brother of Kamalakara, who added to his
legal treatises the Bhattadinakara on the Sastradipika; of
his son Visvesvara or Gaga Bhatta, whose Bhattacintamani
deals with the Sutra; of Kamalakara himself, and of
Nllakantha who shows in his compilation, Bhagavanta-
bhaskara, an excellent knowledge of the MImamsa topics
1 Cf. Mandlik, Vyavaharamayukha, p. LXXV.
98 THE KARMA-MIMAMSA
with which his father, Sarhkara Bhatta, had dealt. The
parallelism, indeed, of the two enquiries only became the more
salient as with the course of time the number of Smrtis and
other texts claiming authority increased, and the ideal of
reconciling their conflicting views was more and more
strongly held. All the devices necessary for such an end
existed in the Mlmarhsa, and we can understand from this
reason why it was not thought necessary or desirable to
develop a distinct science of legal interpretation.
Thus the essential doctrine of injunction in civil law is
based on the principles adopted in the Mimamsa, and in
the interpretation of the various kinds of injunction the
civil law adapts to its own special needs the maxims of the
sacred law. The distinction between injunction proper and
a restrictive injunction (niyama) is applied in the sense
that the latter is reduced to nothing more than a maxim
or rule, which ought to be regarded, but which, if violated,
does not render the action affected invalid; thus Manu's
rule as to marrying an amiable and healthy girl is not
an injunction, the violation of which renders void the
marriage, but a counsel of prudence. The case of an
injunction of limitation (parisamkhyd) raises difficulties, as
there arises in regard to it the question whether or not it is
to be deemed to imply a prohibition ; thus, when the
injunction is laid down that the sons may divide the family
property on the death of their parents, Jimutavahana puts
the question whether it is to be inferred that they may do so
only on the death of their parents, a view which he rejects.
Negative injunctions also raise a point of legal impor
tance in the relation of prohibition proper, and a mere
exception (paryudasa). Thus the general law of the succes
sion of a son and other heirs is subject to the exclusion from
succession of persons impotent, outcaste, lame, blind, and
suffering from incurable diseases, who are entitled to
maintenance merely. The negation in their case is essen
tially to be treated as an exception to the general rule of
succession ; it, therefore, applies only to persons so circum
stanced at the moment when the succession would normally
vest, and, therefore, if successors become so afflicted after
becoming entitled to the succession, the rule does not in any
THE MIMAMSA AND HINDU LAW 99
way affect them, as, of course, it would do if it were a
prohibition proper.1
In the interpretation of the Smrti injunctions the same
principles are applicable as in the case of the interpretation
of the injunctions of application in Vedic texts. Thus the
express declaration of a text must be held to override any
conclusion which might be deduced from it by suggestion
(laksana), corresponding to liiiga in Jaimini. The decla
ration of Manu (IX, 104) that "after the death of father
and mother the sons should divide the paternal property, for
they have no po;ver over it while their parents live," is an
absolute declaration that they have no such power ; it is
impossible to read the rule as forbidding partition during
the parents' life, but acknowledging the power of the sons
over the property. The power of suggestion, however, has
also its own place ; thus Nanda Pandita in explaining how,
although the word "substitute" was first applied specificially
to five kinds of sons, it becomes applicable to all the twelve
kinds legally recognised, adduces the Pranabhrt maxim
(I, 4, 28) as his warrant. iTanabhrt originally denotes a
Mantra used in consecrating a brick in the fire altar ;
thence it passes to be the name of the brick, and from
denoting the special bricks used applies more generally to
any brick. The principle of syntactical connection (vakya)
reappears, usually under the title Anvaya ; its superiority to
context (prakarana) is illustrated by Raghunandana's discus
sion of Manu's rule (XI, 209) that one who assaults a
Brahman must undergo the Krcchra penance. If the context
is invoked, this may seem merely to refer to the case of the
new and full moon sacrifices, and therefore has no general
or civil application, but the sound view is that it is to be
treated as a single independent proposition.
The term, Arthavada, which plays so important a part
in the Mimarhsa discussions is dropped in legal terminology,
but the legal texts recognise the existence of such passages
in the Smrtis and deal variously with them. One difficult
problem is handled in the light of the maxim of Jaimini
(I, 2, 19-25), dealing with declarations which have the
1 Tagore Law Lectures, 1905, pp. 332, 333.
100 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
appearance of being injunctions but are not really so
(vidhivannigadddhikarana) . Thus Jimutavahana x is
enabled to hold that the text which provides that, " Though
immovables or bipeds have been acquired by a man, no gift
or sale of them without the assent of his sons," is to be
completed by the words, " should be made," and not by the
words " must be made." This interpretation reduces the
sentence to a mere pious opinion, and avoids contradiction
with the well-known injunction, which allows a man absolute
power of disposal over property acquired by his own
exertions, as opposed to ancestral possessions. The same
maxim, however, has been interpreted as supporting the
general rule that an injunction for which a reason is
adduced is merely equivalent to an Arthavada, so that
Vasistha's rule against the adoption of an only son is
reduced to a pious expression of opinion, because it is
followed by the explanation that a son is one who saves
from hell his natural father, a fact which makes the
adoption of an only son undesirable. The Mimamsa rule,
however, goes no further than to hold that, if for a rule
which has no known Vedic sanction a selfish motive can be
seen, it is impossible to postulate for it the authority of
a Vedic text, and 'the supposed rule of law is clearly too
widely stated.
The obligation of law to the Mimamsa extends to every
department of the topic, and it not merely in matters of
interpretation that the legal writers borrow matter from the
Mimamsa, but they show repeatedly traces of influence by
the positive doctrines of that school in their bearing on the
religious aspect of property and family rights. The doctrine
of the three debts of man, sacrifice to the gods, study to the
Rsis, and the begetting of a son for the Fathers, enunciated
by Jaimini, affords three presumptions which, more or less
effectively, are taken into account by the schools of law. In
treating the principle of succession Jimutavahana uses, as
a guiding principle in reconciling the conflicting statements
of the Smrtis, the principle of securing as far as possible
spiritual welfare, and in interpreting the rules regarding
1 Dayabhaga, trans. Colebrooke, II, 29, 30.
THE MIMAMSA AND HINDU LAW 101
self acquisition of property he tacitly favours the claims of
Vedic study. Vijnanesvara, on the other hand, in his
treatment of the right of succession accepts the guidance of
the importance of maintaining the institution of the family.
It is significant that in treating of the fundamental text of
Gautama on ownership as derived from inheritance, pur
chase, partition, seizure, or finding, both Jimutavahana and
Vijnanesvara appeal to the Mimamsa in support of tenets
which are essentially at variance. The view of the former
accepts the doctrine that in all these modes of acquisition
there is more than mere physical acquisition concerned ; the
attaining possession must be in furtherance of duty in the
widest sense. This view he supports by the doctrine that,
when the priest becomes possessed of the remnant of the
sacrifice, he does so not by the mere act of acceptance, but
in virtue of the pious intention of the donor in dedicating
the offerings to the deity. Thus for him succession becomes
a matter of spiritual benefit, and the property comes to the
heir not in virtue of his acquisition of it, but by a species
of relinquishment by his ancestor, a principle upon which,
it has ingeniously been suggested, the lawyers of Bengal
might easily have built a doctrine permitting of the limited
settlement of family property. Vijnanesvara,1 on the other
hand, following a suggestion of Prabhakara, argues that
Jaimini (IV, 1, 3-6) was of opinion that property was
essentially a matter of popular recognition, and that the
acquisition of property by an action in breach of law did
not deprive the sacrifices made by means of it of full effi
cacy. Hence Vijnanesvara's doctrine of succession rests on
blood kinship, and heritage is defined by him as wealth that
becomes the property of another solely by reason of relation
ship to the owner. Similarly the Vyavahdramayukha
(p. 32), in accepting the purely secular origin of property,
nonetheless appeals to the Mimamsa treatment (VI, 7, 1, 2)
of the Visvajit offering in order to show that one's children
are not included in the term " property," for when at that
offering the sacrificer is supposed to give away to the priests
1 On Yajnavalkya, II, 114; he cites Guru (p. 198, ed. Bombay,
1909), and the passage is found in the Brhati (Prabhakara School.
P. 312).
102 THE KARMA-MIMAMSA
his all, his children are excluded from the gift. The same
passage is also employed to express the limited character of
the ownership of a king or a feudatory; his actual owner
ship is restricted to whatever property he has acquired ; his
position towards the territory is one of sovereignty or suzer-
anity, entitling him to a maintenance but not to true owner
ship; when a king is said to give a village, he does not trans
fer the ownership of the land, which is not his to give, but
assigns to the donee the right of drawing a maintenance
from the village.
The Mimamsa also affords guidance to Vijnanesvara
(II, 136) in a variety of details in connection with heritage
and partition. The claim of woman to inherit is
questioned on the ground that, as property is intended for
sacrificial purposes and as save along with her husband a
woman has no locus standi as a sacrificer, on the interpreta
tion of the Mimamsa Sutra (VI, 1, 17-21) adopted in the
commentators, there is no ground for her having the right of
inheritance. This illiberal doctrine is disposed of by appeal
to another passage of the Mimamsa Sutra (III, 4, 26) in
which it refers to ornaments of gold worn by the priests and
the sacrificer, though serving no sacrificial purpose. The
exact share of a wife raises difficulties in view of the con
flicting interpretation of the two main texts, the first of which
provides that, if an owner divides property in his lifetime,
he should make his wives have equal shares with his sons;
and the second, that on partition after the death of the
husband the wife should have a share equal to that of her
sons. These passages are interpreted by some authorities to
mean that, if the property is extensive, she is to have a mere
subsistence from the estate, while, if it is small, she is to
have an equal share. This view is rejected on the strength
of the principle upheld by Jaimini (VII, 3, 19-25) that, so
long as a text can yield a single coherent meaning, it is not
right to treat it as broken into two incongruous parts. Simi
larly it is on the Mimamsa rule (V, 1, 4-7) of following the
order of things mentioned in a certain order that is based
the claim that, when the parents of a childless son succeed
to his property, the mother has a prior claim, because the
term parents (pitarau) is explained in grammatical treatises
THE MIMAMSA AND HINDU LAW 103
as mother and father (matdpitarau), and not as father and
mother. Another appeal to the Mimamsa doctrine is made
in regard to Yajnavalkya's doctrine (II, 126) that a
coparcener, who at the time of partition withholds part of
the property, must give it up for division. The question
arises whether the action is reprehensible or not, and is
decided in the affirmative because in the Mimamsa (VI, 3, 20)
it is ruled that a man who substitutes one form of meal for
another, even if acting under a genuine misapprehension, still
does wrong, so that, even if the coparcener had some right
to the property and regarded it as his own, his conduct is
censurable. Jimutavahana, as often, differs in part from
Vijnanesvara, and extenuates the action. On a strict
interpretation by Mimamsa principles again, it is not
impossible to argue that Jimutavahana does not allow the
disposal by will by a father of inherited property without
provision being made for the maintenance of the sons; the
conflicting view of the Privy Council is clearly hard to
reconcile with the principles of Mimamsa.1
Adoption, like inheritance, affords a fruitful field^for the
application of Mimamsa principles.2 The right of a Sudra to
adopt, which is denied in the Suddhiviveka, on the ground
that adoption must be accompanied by Vedic Mantras and
an oblation which he cannot as a Sudra have performed, is
vindicated on the ground of the occurrence of a certain offer
ing for a Nisadasthapati (VI, 1, 51) in the Veda, although a
Nisada is normally as a Sudra excluded from any Vedic
rite. The Mantras can then be recited by an Aryan. A
woman, again, can only adopt with the permission of her
husband, as she cannot by herself perform Vedic rites and
ceremonies (VI, 1,6). Again, a child when adopted cannot
inherit his father's property or perform his Sraddha, accord
ing to Manu; this rule, though restricted to these two facts,
must be understood to apply generally on the analogy of
terms like antarvedi in the Mimamsa (III, 7, 13, 14), which
means not merely at the centre of the altar, but anywhere
within it. By another maxim Nilakantha decides that
1 Tagore Law Lectures, 1905, pp. 405-11.
2 Vyavaharamayukha (ed. Bombay, 1880), pp. 40 ff.
104 THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
Saunaka's text, which asserts that the son of a daughter and
the son of a sister are adopted by Sudras, is to be read to mean
that these adoptions are generally permissible, and that they
are specially so in the case of Sudras : the maxim used is the
Maitravaruna, which rests on the interpretation of the
two sentences, " He hands over a staff to the Maitravaruna
priest; he initiates or invokes by means of the staff." The
accepted opinion is that the handing over of the staff is a
distinct injunction, the initiation or invocation subsidiary,
and so here the part of the Sudra is only subsidiary to
an established rule. Samkara Bhatta, his father, whom
Nilakantha cites, expressly applies to the Sudra the duty
of paying his debt to the Fathers, which is asserted of the
Brahman as an instance in the Mimamsa Sutra.
Similar use of the Mimamsa is made in the same con
nection by Nanda Pandita in the Dattakamlmamsa
(c. 1600 A.D.). Thus on the analogy of the Vaisvadeva,
which is a maxim (I, 4, 13-16) laying down that in the case
of such a word as that the conventional sense is to be fol
lowed in lieu of the etymological, he holds (VI, 27) that the
term sapinda used of relationship is not to be restricted to
the exact meaning suggested by the word as a compound.
So also, in order to meet the objection of Medhatithi to an
adopted son on the ground that the duty of man is fulfilled
only by begetting a son, he adduces (I, 41) the maxim
(VI, 3, 31) of the substitution of the Putika for the Soma
plant. In determining the value of substitution the mode in
which the substitute originated is unimportant, the question
is whether it can serve its purpose adequately, and this an
adopted son can easily do. Again, the objection to the rule
that an adoptive father must perform the birth ceremony for
an adopted child, though adoption is permitted up to the
fifth year, is met by the use of the maxim (V, 4, 5-14) that,
when a difficulty arises as to the order of performance of
offerings, reason and necessity must be consulted, whence it
follows that the performance of the birth ceremony is in order
though tardy. The author of the Dattakacandrika similarly
appeals to the Mimamsa doctrine(IV, 1, 22-24)of the relation
of the principal and incidental aspects of an action, in order
to support his view that, if one of two co-widows adopt, the
THE MIMAMSA AND HINDU LAW 105
child becomes the adopted child of the other as well. As the
principal purpose of the action is to provide offspring for the
dead husband, the result of doing so is that the son occupies
the same position to either widow, this being a mere incidental
matter. The same text elsewhere cites the Kapinjala
maxim (XI, 1, 38-45) which indicates that, when the
plural number is used in any injunction, in the absence of
necessity requiring that a larger number should be deemed
to be meant, the needs of the situation are fully met by
restricting the number to three, the minimum indicated.
The sacrificial practice yields one obvious contribution to
the law of partnership, such as those of trading companies,
bodies of actors, and agricultural concerns. The rule is
laid down that the returns are to be divided among the
partners according to the amounts of their respective invest
ments, on the analogy of the distribution of the sacrificial fees
among the officiating priests (X, 3, 53-55). Thus, of one
hundred cows twelve are given to each of the four principal
priests, six to the next four, four each to the next four, and
three each to the last group, the amounts being allocated in
accordance with the comparative importance of their contri
bution to the carrying out of the offering.
In the domain of quasi-criminal law Raghunandana
solves a difficulty by the application of the analogy of the
principle of Tantra, where a single performance of an
action serves the purpose of more than one principal offering.
The problem is raised in the case of the rule that the assailant
of a Brahman must perform the Krcchra penance on pain
of punishment; if, then, one offends against five Brahmans,
is the penance to be performed five times ? The answer on
the Tantra principle is in the negative. Medhatithi again
has recourse to the Mimamsa maxim of Grahaikatva (III,
1, 13-15). which holds that in a general injunction the
singular includes the plural and the masculine the feminine,
in order to solve the doubt raised by the rule of Manu (V,
90) that a Brahman must not drink spirituous liquor, an
ingenious objector having suggested that the text is restrict
ed in its application to such action by a single male Brah
man. The maxim, it will be seen, differs entirely in its
effect from that given above, which in sacrifices and on
106 THE KARMA-MIMAMSA
other occasions reduces a plural to its bare meaning of
three.
Even more interesting is a case in which the law of
evidence is influenced by the Mimamsa doctrine of the self
validity of cognitions. Yajnavalkya lays down (II, 80)
that, if a man has brought forward witnesses, yet if at a later
period he can produce more satisfactory testimony, the
evidence already adduced is to be discredited. This pro
cedure, at first sight drastic, is justified b> the adduction in
the Mitaksard of the arguments adduced by the Vrttikara in
support of the self-evidence of cognitions. Evidence is
prima facie valid, unless it can be shown that the witness
could not have known the facts, that his means of knowl
edge were defective (kdranadosa) , or his evidence is
displaced by other evidence, that is, the first cognition is
sublated by a second cognition. Immediately after, Vijnanes-
vara (II, 83) has recourse to the Mimamsa to provide a
suitable penance for the witness whom he enjoins to with
hold evidence or testimony, where the proof of the charge
would result in the infliction of the capital penalty ; in
these cases the usual punishment of a fine, or in the case
of a Brahman banishment, is not in point ; still, to do away
with the sin of the deviation from the truth the performance
of a special offering, the Sarasvatesti, given in the Mimamsa,
is prescribed.
As is natural, the obligations of the law books to the
Mimamsa principles are still more marked in those parts of
those treatises which deal, not with civil law (vyavahdra) in
the narrower sense of the term, but with religious custom
and penances. Even in the civil law, however, there is one
point on which the law books differ in essentials from
Jaimini ; it was necessary for the latter, in support of his
doctrine of the eternity of the Veda, to maintain that its
commands are universal, and thus he treats even Smrti texts
which contain injunctions expressed as local practises
as really laying down general principles. In the practical
needs of the law, however, the utmost value is always
attached to local customs, and the practice of good
men, which thus in effect comes to outweigh maxims in
Smrtis, if in any place these are not followed. Yet
THE MIMAMSA AND HINDU LAW 107
Jaimini's insistence on the supreme value of the Veda in all
questions was not without effect; the tendency in the
Smrtis is, in harmony no doubt with a common practice, to
allot in the case of partition of property a larger share to
the eldest son than to the others. But there is Vedic
authority for the statement that Manu divided his property
in equal shares among his sons, and this doctrine has finally
prevailed in the law, despite the efforts of some of the
compilers of digests to compromise the matter in order to
obey the clear directions of the Smrtis.1 In the legal
schools, again, it has been found necessary to assign relative
weight to Puranas and Smrtis, a distinction which is not
found in Kumarila, who accepts the Puranas on the same
basis as the Smrtis. In the case of a divergence between
Smrti and Purana the former should prevail in the view of
Vyasa; the Purana represents no more than custom, while
the Smrti is a step nearer to Sruti.2
While the Mimamsa thus stands in close relation with
Indian law, in its enunciation of principles in the form of
brief maxims (nydya), comparable with the headnotes of
modern law reports, it stands in equally close relation with
the popular vogue of maxims3 framed on the model whence
the Mimamsa use is doubtless derived. Such popular
maxims are freely cited by the text-books of the school, and
it was presumbly on their analogy that the Adhikarana
headings were derived; the remarkable divergence of the
commentators4 in allotting Sutras to Adhikaranas indicates
that the latter were not a primitive constituent of the Sutra
text.
1 Cf. Mandlik, trans, of Vyavaharamayukha, p. 41, n. 1.
2 Tagore Law Lectures, 1905, pp. 234, 235 ; d., however,
Mandlik, op. cit . p. xxx.
3 See Col. Jacob's Lankikany&ydnjali (2nd ed., 3 parts).
* Above pp. 4, 13. So in the Veddnta Sutra.
INDEX
A CTION, 56, 66
•rA Actions, classification of,
85,86
Adoption, 103 , 104
Adhikarana, 4, 13, 107
Air, 53, 54
Aita§ayana, 4
Alayavijnana, 47
Analogy, 32, 33
Anandagiri, 11
Anantadeva, 13
Angapurva, 75
Annulment of rites, 95
Anubhuti, 17
Anumana, 30
Anusanga, 82
Anuvyavasaya, 22, 50
Anvaya, 99
Apastamba, 2
Apadeva, 13, 76, 78
Apoha, 40
Appayya Diksita, 12
Apprehension, validity of, 17-20
Aprama. 17
Apurva, 36, 73, 74,75, 89
Arthapatti, 33, 34
Arthasamgraha, 13
Arthavada, 80, 83, 88, 99, 100
Aryadeva, 7
Asanga, 46
A§vaghosa, 7
Atheism, 61
Atomic theory, 50, 54, 61, 62
Atreya, 4
Aupavarsas,'71
Avapa, 95
Aversion, 54, 55, 68
DADARAYANA, 4, 5, 35, 77
u Badari,4, 88
Baudhdyana Dharma Sutra, 97
Bhagavadgitd, 73, 76
Bhdmatl, 16
Bhartrhari, 11, 36 n.
Bhartrmitra, 8
Bhasarvajna, 32
Bhatta Dinakara, 12, 97
Bhatta Samkara, 12, 98
Bhattabhdskara, 13
Bhdttacintamani, 12, 97
Bhattalamkara, 13
Bhdttarahasya, 13
Bhavadasa, 7
Bhavanatha Mi§ra, 12
Bhavana, 75, 76
Bodhayana, 8
Body, 67, 69 ; of creator, 62, 63
Brahman, 36 n., 39, 76, 77
Brahruanas, Mimamsa in, 1; re
cognise soul, 68 ; contents of,
79-81
Brhatl, 9, 101 n.
Buddhist views, 6, 7, 14, 30, 40,
65, 84 ; and see Vijnanavada
and !§unyavada.
/CATEGORIES, 52, 53
^ Cause, 23, 24, 59, 60
Chandogya Upanisad, 77
Cidananda, 28
Class signification of words, 39
Classification of actions, 85, 86
Cognition, validity of, 17-20 ;
mode of apprehension of, 20-
22, 45, 46, 49, 50, 68, 70, 71 ;
of soul, 70, 71; as quality of
soul, 67
Colour, 54, 55
Conjunction, 54, 55 ; in percep
tion, 23, 26, 35
Construction, rales of, 81, 82,
86, 87, 89, 99
Convention, as basis of lan
guage, 36
Co-partners, 103
Creator, existence of denied,
36, 43, 61-64
Custom, value of, 85, 106, 107
r\ANA, 86
^ Darkness, 53, 54
Dattakacandrika, 104
INDEX
109
Dattakamimdmsa , 104
Deities, in sacrifice, 74, 77, 78, 81
Demerit, 55, 62, 67, 68, 71
Desire, 54, 55, 66, 67
Determinate perception, 24, 25
Devatasvarupavicara, 78
Dharma, 4, 35
Dharma Sutras, Mimamsa in, 2,
3, 97
Dharmakirti, 9 n., 14, 24
Dhvani, 55
Dignaga, 14, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30,
48, 52
Dimension, 54, 55, 68
Dinakara Bhatta, 12, 97
Disjunction, 54, 55
Dream cognition, 18, 44, 45
ETFFORT, 54, 55
*-* Ekavakyata, 82
Elasticity, 55
Error, 19, 20
Eternity, of word, 37-39 ; of
Veda, 42, 43, 106
Ether, 37, 38, 53,_54
Evidence. Mimamsa rules as
affecting law of, 106
|7ALLAClES,doctrineof, 30-32
r Fire, 53, 54
Fluidity, 55
(~* AGA, or VisveSvara, Bhatta,
^ 12, 97
GangeSa, 15
Gautama, 77
Generality, 26, 56-58 ; cf. 50, 51
Gesture, as a Pramana, 43
God, 36, 61-64, 76
Gopala Bhatta, 12
Govinda, 76"
Grahaikatva, 105
Grammar, value of, 84, 85
Gravity, 55
Gunaratna, 15, 76
Guru, i.e. Prabhakara, 9, 101 n.
LJARI, 8
1 * Haribhadra, 15
Hearing, 38, 39
Homa, 86
IDEAS, how known, 20-22,45,
46, 49, 50, 68, 70, 71
Imagination, function of in
knowledge, 24, 25
Inmortality, 64, 65, 72
Import of words, 39, 40
Impression, 49, 55, 66, 68
Indeterminate perception, 24
25; alone valid, 52 n.
Individuality, 25, 54, 55, 68
Inference, 27-32
Infinite regress, 18, 22, 28
Inherence, 26, 54, 58
Injunction, 35, 74, 75, 85-94, 98
Intrinsic validity of apprehen
sion. 17-20
Isu,94
ISvara, 76
IsVarakrsna, 59
Interpretation, rules of Vedic,
79_-96
Itihasa, authority of, 82, 83
TAIMINI, 4, 5, 35, 76, 77, 78, 79,
J 88, 91, 99_, 106
Jaiminiyanyayamalavistara, 12
Jaiminisutrabhasya, 14
Jain views, 32 n., 34, 38, 68, 69
Jayanta_Bhatta, 14, 15
Jimutavahana, 100, 101, 103
Jivadeva, 13
K'ALANJA, 93
^ Kanada, 77
Kamalakara, 12, 97
Kapila, 77
Kapinjala, a Nyaya, 105
KaSika, 10
KeSava, 13
Khandadeva, 12, 13
Knowledge, theory of, 17-43 ;
and liberation, 72, 73
Krcchra, 105
Krsna Diksita, 13
Kulluka, 97
Kumarila, 6, 7, 9, 10, 14, 15,
17-19, 21, 22, 25, 27, 28, 30, 34,
35, 38,40,41,46,49,52,53,61,
64, 69, 71, 73, 74, 75, 79, 80,
82, 83_, 85, 90
Kusumanjali, 14
110
THE KARMA-MIMAMSA
I ABUKAYANA, 4
*-• Laksana or Linga, 89, 99
Language, origin of, 36, 37
Laugaksi Bhaskara, 13, 76
Law, Mimamsa principles in,
97-107
Liberation, 72-74
Like, known by like, 23
Logic, 14, 17-43.
|V/[ADHAVA, 3, 4, 12, 15, 97
1V1 Madhyamikas, 46, 47
Mahdbhdrata, 5, 7
Mahdbhdsya, 5 n.
Mahadeva Vedantin, 12
Maitravaruna, a Nyaya, 104
Manadeva, 14
Manameyodaya, 14
Mandana MiSra, 11, 16
Mantra, 81, 82 ; Uha of, 94, 95
Manu, 82, 97, 98, 103
Matter, 50, 53, 54, 61, 67, 69
Mayukhamalikd, 12
Meaning, relation of to word,
35,36
Medhatithi, 98, 104
Memory, 19, 20, 25, 66, 67, 68
Mental perception, 20, 50 ; and
see mind.
Merit, 55, 62, 67, 68, 71
Metaphysics, 44-78
Mimamsa, 1
Mimdmsd Sutra, 3-7, 37 n ; con
tents, 79-96
MimdmsdbdlaprakdSa, 13
Mlmamsaka, 3, 5 n.
Mimdmsdkaustubha, 12
Mimdmsdnayaviveka, 12
Mlmdmsdnukramam, 12
MimdmsdnydyaprakdSa, 13
Mimdmsdmakaranda, 14
Mimdmsdpddukd, 14
Mimdmsdparibhdsd, 13
Mimamsdratna, 13
Mlmdmsdsdrasamgraha, 13
Mind, 23, 24, 68, 69, 70 ; and see
Mental Perception.
Mitdksard, 9, 106
Mode of apprehension of cogni
tion, 20-22, 45, 46, 49, 50, 68,
70, 71 ; of soul, 70, 71
Motion, 56, 66
MAGARJUNA, 6, 44
1 ^ Name, 80, 81
Nanda Pandita, 99, 104
Ndyakaratna, 12
Narayana, 14
Narayana, of Kerala, 14
Narayanatlrtha Muni, 13
Nescience, 63, 64
Nigadas, 95
Nihilism, 6, 7, 44, 45, 46-52
Nilakantha, 97, 103, 104
Nirnaya, 4
Nisadasthapati, 103
Nisedha, 93
Niyama, 93, 98
Niyoga, 75
Non-existence, 34, 35, 52, 53, 60
Non-perception, 34, 35, 60
Number, 52, 68
Nyaya, meaning of, 2, 107
Nyaya school, 14, 17-20, 22, 26,
27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 36, 40,
55, 70
Nydya Siltra, 5, 14, 24, 29, 37 n.,
44, 46, 51
Nyaya-VaiSesika school, 14,
23, 50, 52, 53, 56, 57, 58, 60,
61, 63, 68, 69
Nydyakanikd, 11
Nydyamanjari, 14
Nydyaratndkara, 10
Nydyaratnamdld, 12
Nydyasudhd, 10
NydydvaUdldhiti, 12
Nydyavdrttika, 14
f^BJECTIVE idealism, 52
^ Ontology, 44-60
Order of sacrifices, 90, 91
DAIN, 54, 67, 68, 73
* Pancatantra, 5 n.
Panini, 5 n.
Pafisamkhya, 93, 98
Parthasarathi MiSra, 10, 11, 12,
21,87
Particularity, 52, 59
Partnership, 105
Paryudasa, 85,86, 94, 98
INDEX
111
Perception, 22-27, 54, 63 ; of
motion, 56 ; of similarity, 59
Phala, 27, 30
Phalapurva, 75
Pleasure, 54, 66, 67, 68, 73
Plurality of souls, 71, 72
Posteriority, 54, 55
Potency, 32, 55
Prabhacandra, 11
Prabhakara, 9, 10, 14, 15, 17,
19, 20, 22, 25, 27, 28, 30, 34,
35, 39, 40, 41, 52, 53, 61, 64,
69, 70, 71, 72, 74, 75, 79, 80,
83, 85, 90
Prakarana, 94, 99
Prakaranapancika, 16
Prakatya, 55
Prama\ 17
Pramana, 27 ; number of . 35, 43
Prameyapdrdyana, 9, 16, 55 n.
Pranabhrt, a Nyaya, 99
Prasanga, 96
Prasastapada, 15, 27, 29, 30, 54,
55, 60 n.
Pratisedha, 85, 86
Pratyabhijna, 17
Presumption, 33, 34 ; as proof
of Apurva, 74
Priority, 54, 55
Purana, authority of, 82, 83, 107
Purvapaksa, 3
QUALITIES, 54, 55
DAGHAVANANDA Saras-
*v vati, 12
Raghunandana, 99, 105
Raghunatha, 13
Ramakrsna, 12
Ramakrsna Udicya Bhatta-
carya, 13
Ramanuja, 12, 46, 77
RamesVara, 12
Rdnaka, 10
Rathakara,_92
Ratnakara§anti, idealism of, 48n.
Recognition, 17
Remembrance, 17 ; and see
Memory.
Rumour, as a Pramana, 43
Rjuvimald, 9
CABARASVAMIN, 7, 8, 9, 10,
j? 39, 44, 64, 87, 88, 91
Sabda, as form of absolute, 36
n. ; and see Word.
Sacrifices, 22, 73, 74, 76
Saddarfanasamuccaya, 15
S"alikanatha, 9, 17, 60 n., 75
Saman, 81
Samantabhadra, 11
Sambhava, as a Pramana, 43
Sarbgati, 4
Samkara, 6,7, 9, 46, 76
S"arhkara Bhatta, 12, 98, 104
Samkaravijaya, 11
Sdmkhya Sutra, 5, 36, 38, 64, 73.
SarhSaya, 3
Samudayapurva, 75
Sdrirakabhdsya, 10
SarvadarSanasamgraha, 15
Sarvasiddhdntasamgraha, 9, 15
^astra, as a Pramana, 35, 41
Sdstradipikd, 11, 12
Sattras, 92
Saunaka, 104
Sautrantika, 49
Self -consciousness, 20-22
Self-evidence of cognitions, 17-
20, 106 ; and see Ideas.
Senses, 23, 54, 55
Sense organs, 23, 67, 69
Series of ideas, 49, 65, 66
S"esa,87
Segvaramimamsa, 14, 76
Siddhanta, 4
Similarity, 32, 33, 52, 58, 59
Slokavdrttika, 10
Smell, 54, 55
Smrti, 82, 83, 107
SomeSvara, 10
Soul, 64-72
Sound, 37, 38, 39, 53, 54
Space, 53, 54, 55
Sphota, 33
Spirit ; see Soul.
S*ridhara, 15, 54
Subodhini, 12
Substance, 53, 54
112
THE KARMA-MlMAMSA
Sucarita Misra, 10
Suddhiviveka, 103
Sudra, 103
Sunyavada, 6, 7, 44, 45, 46-52
SureSvara, 11
Svatahpramanya; 7
Syena, 94
Syllogism, 29, 30
MANTRA, 95, 105
•*• Tantravarttika, 10
Tdrkikaraksd , 14
Taste, 54, 55
Tattvabindu, 11
Tattvacintamani, 15
Theism, 76 ; and see God, Dei
ties.
Time, 53. 54, 55
Touch, 53, 54, 55
Transcendental perception, 27,
28
Transfer of ceremonies, 94, 95
Transmigration, 65, 66
Tuptikd, 10
T 1DAYANA, 14, 32
~ Uddyotakara, 9 n., 14, 24
Una, 94, 95
Unseen principle, 20
Upakratnapardkrama, 13
Upamana, 33, 34
Upavarsa, 7, 8
Utpattyapurva, 75
WACASPATI MiSra, 11, 14,
v 15 n., 24, 46
Vaidyanatha, 12
VaiSesika school, 32, 35, 36, 42-
66, 70, 73
Vaifesika Sutra, 5
VaiSvadeva, a Nyaya, 104
Vakyabheda, 82
Validity of knowledge, 17-20 ;
of percegtion, 25, 26
Vallabha Acarya, 13
Varadaraja, 14, 16
Vdrttikdbharana, 10
Varttikakara, 9
Vasubandhu, 46
Vatsyayana, 24, 46
Venkatadhvarin, 14
Venkafanatha, VenkateSa, 10,
76
VenkateSvara Diksita, 14
Veda, 36, 42, 43, 63
Vedanga, 83
Vedanta school, 36, 46, 63, 64,
69, 70, 72
Vedanta Sutra, 5, 6, 7, 44, 46, 61,
76,_77
Vijnanavada, 5, 6, 7, 20, 22, 46-
52 _
VijnaneSvara, 101
Vidhi ; see Injunction.
Vidhirasayana, 12 ; commen
taries on, 12
Vidhitrayaparitrdna, 14
Vidhiviveka, 11
Vidyananda, 11
Vikalpa, 96
Vikrti, 2, 86
Vindhyavasin, 59, 65
Visaya, 3
Viscidity, 55
ViSvajit, a Nyaya, 87, 101
Vrttikara, 7, 8, 20, 22, 27, 29,
30, 32, 34, 35, 42, 88, 106
Vyapti, 27
Vyasa, 107
Vyavahdramayukha, 101, 103
Vyavasaya, 22, 50
\Y7ATER, 53, 54
vv Whole and part, 50, 51;
cf. 56-58
Wife, share of husband's pro
perty, 102
Woman, right to sacrifice, 91,
92, 102
Word, or verbal testimony, 35-
43
GA, 86
Yajnavalkya, 103, 106
Yajus, 81
Yuktisnehaprapuram, 12
Yoga Sutra, 5
Yogdcdras, 47
Yogins, perception of, 27 n.,
48
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