A History of Sanskrit Literature c33.s2: 2. The Pūrvamīmāṅsā

A History of Sanskrit Literature c33.s2

Language: English

2. The Pūrvamīmāṅsā

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Among the schools, Darçanas, the Pūrvamīmāṅsā can claim on the score of its character considerable age. Performers of Vedic rites found themselves in need of rules of interpretation, Nyāyas, to guide them through the maze of texts, and the *Āpastambīya Dharmasūtra*³ already refers to those who know Nyāyas. The Sūtra of the school essentially aims at laying down principles regarding interpretation of texts in their connexion with carrying out the sacrificial ritual; man's duty is the performance of sacrifice in due manner, and the Veda is the one authority. The relation of sound and meaning is thus a relevant problem, as is that of the personal existence of gods, but deeper philosophic issues were introduced only by the commentators who developed true systems of philosophy. The Sūtra, however, develops a method which is common to Indian science generally, and which was adopted by the writers on law; the subject is posed, the doubt is raised; the prima facie view is set out; then the correct decision is developed, and the matter brought into connexion with other relevant doctrines. From Medhātithi onwards use is made of Mīmāṅsā principles in deciding legal difficulties, such as arose from the recognition in the law schools of many conflicting texts as all having authority, just as the Vedic texts before the compilers of the Mīmāṅsā presented innumerable incongruities.

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³ ii. 4. 8. 13; 6. 14. 3.

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The twelve books of Sūtras¹ give often the impression of not very effective compilation. They were commented on by Upavarṣa and later by Çabarasvāmin, both of whom wrote also on the *Brahma Sūtra* of the Vedānta. Jacobi holds that from the first the Pūrvamīmāṅsā and the Vedānta, or Uttaramīmāṅsā were one school, and that it was only later through Kumārila and Çaṅkara that they were differentiated. This, of course, would give the Pūrvamīmāṅsā a very different aspect, as merely a part of a philosophy, not the whole, but the contention seems dubious, and the syncretism of the systems seems rather to be due to the commentators. Çabarasvāmin seems to have known the nihilistic school of Buddhism, perhaps also the idealistic, and he has a definite theory² of the soul which seems to regard it as produced from the absolute Brahman, but as thereafter existing independently for ever, a view which recurs in Rāmānuja; that this is really the doctrine of the *Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad* ascribed to Yājnavalkya must be emphatically denied.

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¹ Ed. BI. 1873 ff.; trans. by Gaṅgānāth Jhā, SBH. 10, 1910. See Keith, *The Karma-Mīmāṁsā* (1921); K. A. Nilakantha Sastri, IA. l. 211 ff., 340 ff.

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² Jacobi, *Festschrift Windisch*, pp. 153 ff.

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On the Bhāṣya of Çabarasvāmin we have two different systems founded, one by Prabhākara (*c.* 600) in his *Bṛhatī*,³ great (commentary), the other by Kumārila who wrote perhaps about 700. His comment¹ falls into three parts, the *Çlokavārttika* on i. i, of the Sūtra, *Tantravārttika* on i. 2–iii, and *Ṭupṭīkā* on iv–xii. Kumārila is traditionally made out to have instigated persecution of the Buddhists, but the justification for this view seems merely to have been his bitterness against them as the chief enemies of the Veda. He derides the doctrine of the Buddha as omniscient, which none of his contemporaries was competent to know, derides also the followers of the Buddha, and declares empirical means of knowledge worthless; if right be judged by causing pleasure to others, then the violation of the chastity of the wife of the teacher as giving her pleasure would be right instead of a heinous crime. Kumārila was a native of southern India, who reveals his knowledge of Dravidian languages, and recommends that borrowed words should be given Sanskrit terminations; he refers both to literature and to current practices, and his ingenuity is very considerable. His differences in philosophy from Prabhākara are considerable, but both agree with Çabarasvāmin in holding that the individual soul in some sense is immortal; both again do not accept the doctrine of illusion. A pupil of Kumārila, on one theory, of Çaṅkara on another, was Maṇḍana Miçra who wrote a *Mīmāṅsānukramaṇī* and a *Vidhiviveka*;² on the latter Vācaspati Miçra (*c.* 850) writes a comment, the *Nyāyakaṇikā*; he also set forth Kumārila’s views in his *Tattvabindu*.³ Of late works the *Nyāyamālāvistara*⁴ of Mādhava (14th cent.), the *Mīmāṅsānyāyaprakāça*⁵ of Āpadeva, and the *Arthasaṁgraha*⁶ of Laugākṣi Bhāskara are best known, but of more philosophic interest is Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa’s *Mānameyodaya*⁷ (*c.* 1600) in which Kumārila’s epistemology and metaphysics are interestingly summarized.