Karma Mimansa

Author(s): Berriedale Keith
Publisher: Berriedale Keith

Page 10

THE DEVELOPMENT AND LITERARY HISTORY OF THE KARMA-MĪMAMSA
Not rarely in the Brāhmanas, especially in later texts like the Kauşitales, the term Mimāmsā occurs as the designation of a discussion on some point of ritual practisc. 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 Brāhmaṇas, in special the symbolical significance attaching to the action recommended. There is a vital difference between this form of Mimāṁsā and that of the classical Karma-Mīmāmsā 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 Brāhmanas 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 Brāhmanas came to be regarded 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 Samhitās 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 Brähmaņas, were to be performed. This tradition, however, in the course of time