Mīmāṃsā
Mīmāṁsā is a Sanskrit word that means "reflection" or "critical investigation" and thus refers to a tradition of contemplation which reflected on the meanings of certain Vedic texts. This tradition is also known as Pūrva-Mīmāṁsā because of its focus on the earlier Vedic texts dealing with ritual actions, and similarly as Karma-Mīmāṁsā due to its focus on ritual action. It is one of six Vedic "affirming" schools of Hindu philosophy. This particular school is known for its philosophical theories on the nature of Dharma, based on hermeneutics of the Vedas, especially the Brāḥmanas and samhitas. The Mīmāṃsā school was foundational and influential for the Vedāntic schools, which were also known as Uttara-Mīmāṁsā for their focus on the "later" portions of the Vedas, the Upanishads. While both "earlier" and "later" Mīmāṁsā investigate the aim of human action, they do so with different attitudes towards the necessity of ritual praxis.
Mīmāṁsā has several sub-schools, each defined by its pramana. The Prabhākara sub-school, which takes its name from the seventh-century philosopher Prabhākara, described the five epistemically reliable means to gaining knowledge: pratyakṣa or perception; anumāna or inference; upamāṇa, comparison and analogy; arthāpatti, the use of postulation and derivation from circumstances; and shabda, the word or testimony of past or present reliable experts. The Bhāṭṭa sub-school, from philosopher Kumārila Bhaṭṭa, added a sixth means to its canon; anupalabdhi meant non-perception, or proof by the absence of cognition
The school of Mīmāṁsā consists of both non-theistic and theistic doctrines, but the school showed little interest in systematic examination of the existence of Gods. Rather, it held that the soul is an eternal, omnipresent, inherently active spiritual essence, and focused on the epistemology and metaphysics of Dharma. For the Mīmāṁsā school, Dharma meant rituals and social duties, not Devas, or Gods, because Gods existed only in name. The Mīmāṃsakas also held that Vedas are "eternal, author-less, infallible", that Vedic vidhi, or injunctions and mantras in rituals are prescriptive kārya or actions, and the rituals are of primary importance and merit. They considered the Upaniṣads and other texts related to self-knowledge and spirituality as subsidiary, a philosophical view that Vedānta disagreed with.
While their deep analysis of language and linguistics influenced other schools of Hinduism, their views were not shared by others. Mīmāṁsakas considered the purpose and power of language was to clearly prescribe the proper, correct and right. In contrast, Vedāntins extended the scope and value of language as a tool to also describe, develop and derive. Mīmāṁsakās considered orderly, law driven, procedural life as central purpose and noblest necessity of Dharma and society, and divine sustenance means to that end.
The Mīmāṁsā school is a form of philosophical realism. A key text of the Mīmāṁsā school is the Mīmāṁsā Sūtra of Jaimini.
Terminology
Mīmāṁsā, also romanized Mimansa or Mimamsa, means "reflection, consideration, profound thought, investigation, examination, discussion" in Sanskrit. It also refers to the "examination of the Vedic text" and to a school of Hindu philosophy that is also known as , in contrast to – the opposing school of Vedanta. This division is based on classification of the Vedic texts into ', the early sections of the Veda treating of mantras and rituals, and the ' dealing with the meditation, reflection and knowledge of Self, Oneness, Brahman. Between the Samhitas and Brahmanas, the Mīmāṁsā school places greater emphasis to the Brahmanas – the part of Vedas that is a commentary on Vedic rituals.The word comes from the desiderative stem of √man, from Proto-Indo-European *men-. Donald Davis translates Mīmāṁsā as the "desire to think", and in colloquial historical context as "how to think and interpret things". In the last centuries of the first millennium BCE, the word Mīmāṁsā began to denote the thoughts on and interpretation of the Vedas, first as Pūrva-Mīmāṁsā for rituals portions in the earlier layers of texts in the Vedas, and as Uttara-Mīmāṁsā for the philosophical portions in the last layers. Over time, Pūrva-Mīmāṁsā was just known as the Mīmāṁsā school, and the Uttara-Mīmāṁsā as the Vedanta school.
Mīmāṁsā scholars are referred to as Mīmāṁsākas.
Development
Foundational Text
The foundational text for the Mīmāṁsā school is the Purva Mīmāṁsā Sutras of Jaimini. However, Anthony Kennedy Warder notes that Mīmāṃṁsā, as a direct continuation of archaic Vedic ritualism, and Saṁkhya had most definitely already started taking shape prior to the systematic emergence of other orthodox and heterodox schools of Indian philosophy in the mid-1st millennium BCE. Mīmāṁsā Sūtras explicitly aim to establish the correct way to interpret the Vedas.Commentarial Tradition
is the first commentator of the ', whose work is available to us. His ' is the basis of all later works of '. The commentaries on the ' by,, Hari and are no more extant.Kumārila Bhaṭṭa, Mandana Miśra, Pārthasārathi Miśra, Sucarita Miśra, Ramakrishna Bhatta, Madhava Subhodini, Sankara Bhatta, Krsnayajvan, Anantadeva, Gaga Bhatta, Ragavendra Tirtha, VijayIndhra Tirtha, Appayya Dikshitar, Paruthiyur Krishna Sastri, Mahomahapadyaya Sri Ramsubba Sastri, Sri Venkatsubba Sastri, Sri A. Chinnaswami Sastri, Sengalipuram Vaidhyanatha Dikshitar were some of Mīmāṁsā scholars. The school reached its height with Kumārila Bhaṭṭa| and .
, the founder of the first school of the ' commented on both the ' and its '. His treatise consists of 3 parts, the ', the ' and the '. was a follower of, who wrote Vidhiviveka and '. There are several commentaries on the works of. wrote a ' on the '. wrote ', also known as ', a commentary on the '. wrote ', another commentary on the '. He also wrote ', an independent work on the ' and Tantraratna. ’s ' is a commentary on the '.
, the originator of the second school of the ' wrote his commentary ' on the '. ’s ' is a commentary on the '. His ' is an independent work of this school and the ' is a brief explanation of the '. ’s ' deals with the views of this school in details.
The founder of the third school of the ' was, whose works have not reached us.
wrote an elementary work on the ', known as ' or '. ' of is based on the '. ’s ' was an attempt to combine the views of the ' and the ' schools.
Darśana (philosophy) – central concerns
Mīmāṁsā is one of the six classical Hindu darśanas. It is among the earliest schools of Hindu philosophies. It has attracted relatively less scholarly study, although its theories and particularly its questions on exegesis and theology have been highly influential on all classical Indian philosophies. Its analysis of language has been of central importance to the legal literature of India.Ancient Mīmāṁsā's central concern was epistemology, that is what are the reliable means to knowledge. It debated not only "how does man ever learn or know, whatever he knows", but also whether the nature of all knowledge is inherently circular, whether those such as foundationalists who critique the validity of any "justified beliefs" and knowledge system make flawed presumptions of the very premises they critique, and how to correctly interpret and avoid incorrectly interpreting dharma texts such as the Vedas. It asked questions such as "what is devata ?", "are rituals dedicated to devatas efficacious?", "what makes anything efficacious?", and "Can it be proved that the Vedas, or any canonical text in any system of thought, is fallible or infallible ?, if so, how?" and others. To Mīmāṁsā scholars, the nature of non-empirical knowledge and human means to it are such that one can never demonstrate certainty, one can only falsify knowledge claims, in some cases. According to Francis Clooney, the Mīmāṁsā school is "one of the most distinctively Hindu forms of thinking; it is without real parallel elsewhere in the world".
The central text of the Mīmāṁsā school is Jamini's Mīmāṁsā Sutras, accompanied by the historically influential commentary of Sabara and Kumarila Bhatta's commentary on Sabara's commentary. Together, these texts develop and apply the rules of language analysis, asserting that one must not only examine injunctive propositions in any scripture but also examine the alternate related or reverse propositions for better understanding. They suggested that to reach correct and valid knowledge it is not only sufficient to demand proof of a proposition, it is important to give proof of a proposition's negative as well as declare and prove one's preferred propositions. Further, they asserted that whenever perception is not the means of direct proof and knowledge, one cannot prove such non-empirical propositions to be "true or not true", rather one can only prove a non-empirical proposition is "false, not false, or uncertain".
For example, Mīmāṁsakas welcome not only the demand for proof of an injunctive proposition such as "agnihotra ritual leads one to heaven", but suggest that one must examine and prove alternate propositions such as "ritual does not lead one to heaven", "something else leads one to heaven", "there is heaven", "there is no heaven" and so on. Mīmāṁsā literature states that if satisfactory, verifiable proof for all of such propositions cannot be found by its proponents and its opponents, then the proposition needs to be accepted as a part of a "belief system". Beliefs, such as those in the scriptures, must be accepted to be true unless its opponents can demonstrate the proof of the validity of their own texts or teacher these opponents presume to be prima facie justified, and until these opponents can demonstrate that the scriptures they challenge are false. If they do not try to do so, it is hypocrisy; if they try to do so, it can only lead to an infinite regress, according to Mīmānsākas. Any historic scripture with widespread social acceptance, according to Mīmāṁsāka, is an activity of communication and is accepted as authoritative because it is socially validated practice unless perceptually verifiable evidence emerges that proves parts or all of it as false or harmful.
Mīmāṁsākas were predominantly concerned with the central motivation of human beings, the highest good, and actions that make this possible. They stated that human beings seek niratisaya priti in this life and the next. They argued that this highest good is the result of one's own ethical actions, that such actions are what the Vedic sentences contain and communicate, and therefore it important to properly interpret and understand Vedic sentences, words and meaning. Mīmāṁsā scholarship was centrally concerned with the philosophy of language, how human beings learn and communicate with each other and across generations with language in order to act in a manner that enables them to achieve that which motivates them. The Mīmāṁsā school focussed on dharma, deriving ethics and activity from the karma-kanda part of the Vedas, with the argument that ethics for this life and efficacious action for svarga cannot be derived from sense-perception, and can only be derived from experience, reflection and understanding of past teachings.
In every human activity, the motivating force to perform an action is his innate longing for priti,
whether at the lowest level or the highest level.
At the highest level, it is nothing but an unsurpassed state of priti,
which is ensured only by performing ethical actions.
– Sabara, 2nd century Mīmānsā scholar
According to Daniel Arnold, Mīmāṁsā scholarship has "striking affinities" with that of William Alston, the 20th century Western philosopher, along with some notable differences. The Mīmāṁsākas subjected to a radical critique, more than two thousand years ago, states Francis Clooney, the notions such as "God," the "sacred text," the "author" and the "anthropocentric ordering of reality".