Karma Mimansa

Author(s): Berriedale Keith
Publisher: Berriedale Keith

Page 11

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 Samhitãs and the Brāhmanas, 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 Samhitās and the Brāhmaṇas, 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 Mimārisă 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 plausibility, the new doctrine held that if a Brāhmana mentioned an action out of its natural order, such as the cooking of the nice 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 Sūtras. Apastamba in two passagest disposes of contested points by the authority of those who know the Nyāya, a term which is the early designation of the KarmaMimäinsä and persists through its history in its generic sense of "reasoning," while the Nyāya philosophy proper borrows it, and applies it inore specifically to denote the syllogism. What is still more.convincing is that Āpastamba
Bühler, Sacred Books of the East, II, xxviii, xxix; XXV, xlvii, lji,