History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c93.356
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c93.356
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This whole subject about Smṛtis according to the views of the Mīmāṁsakas has been dealt with at great length by the author in H. of Dh. vol. III. pp 827-841. Therefore, only a few examples and conclusions may be mentioned here. Śabara himself proposes that PMS I. 3. 4²⁰⁵⁰ should form a separate *Adhikaraṇa* by itself and puts forward an important maxim viz. where one can find out or ascribe a visible motive for an act one should not postulate an unseen Vedic text or a transcendental motive.²⁰⁵¹ The result of Śabara's dealing with PMS I 3 3-4 is neatly put by the Śāstradīpikā as follow; Smṛti rules that are opposed to Śruti rules and such smṛti provisions as can be shown to have a clear worldly motive are not authoritative or binding, while the rest of smṛti texts are authoritative. This doctrine is older than the Āp Dh S (I 4 10. 12) which provides 'where men act because they find pleasure in doing that act there Śāstra has no scope' Kumārila does not agree with Śabara. He says that visible and invisible or spiritual motives are often inextricably mixed up. 'Unhusking rice grains' has a visible purpose in order that they may be well boiled and the boiled rice may be offered in a sacrifice. In this act then there is a visible purpose and yet this act is prescribed by the Veda. In a trenchant, finely worded and very accommodating passage redolent of a cosmopolitan outlook and the desire to give even the devil his due, Kumārila examines (in pp.
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166-168) all the known classes of Sanskrit works with regard to their usefulness and relation to Veda and ordinary worldly experience. Only a few sentences will be set out here and in the notes. Therefore, he provides that all Smṛtis are authoritative according to the purpose they serve. Those parts of Smṛtis that are concerned with Dharma and Mokṣa have the Veda as their source, while whatever parts of Smṛtis are concerned with wealth (*artha*) and worldly pleasures (*kāma*) are based on worldly practices. The same rule applies to the hortatory passages of *Itihāsa* (the Mahābhārata) and Purāṇas, both of which are often spoken of as Smṛti. The episodes and tales in these two should be taken as *arthavādas*. Then he refers to the descriptions of the divisions of the earth and the vaṁśas (dynastic lists) (both of which are among the subjects treated of in the Purāṇas) and sets out the purposes they might serve. The six Vedāṅgas (grammar, metrics, etymology, astronomy &c.) are useful as kratvartha and puruṣārtha, and Mīmāṁsā and Nyāya (logic) have been established (worked up) from worldly experience by means of *pratyakṣa* (direct perception) and inference based upon the technique evolved by a continuous and unbroken line of learned men; that no single person would have been able to put together for the first time such a large collection of arguments ²⁰⁵² (as in the Mīmāṁsāśāstra). For the necessity of Nyāya (in the interpretation of the Veda) he relies upon Manu XII. 105-106.
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Kumārila is prepared to concede that philosophical systems in which are postulated *pradhāna* and *puruṣa* (Sāṅkhya) or the supreme Lord or atoms (Vaiśeṣika) should be deemed to explain the creation and dissolution of the world, should be looked upon as exhibiting perceived, minute and gross substances divided into causes and effects due to the knowledge derived from *mantras* and *arthavādas*. The purpose of these is to make known the distinction of *svarga* and *yāga* as result and cause. The purpose of the description of creation and dissolution is to show the distinction between the power of luck and human effort. He goes even a step further and is prepared to admit that even heterodox hypotheses of Bauddhas such as the theory that only Vijñāna (cognition) exists, that everything is in an eternal flux and that there is no (permanent) soul, which (theories) sprang from the arthavāda passages in the Upaniṣads, serve the purpose of inducing people to give up extreme attachment to sensual pleasures and are useful and authoritative in their own ways.