Karma Mimansa

Author(s): Berriedale Keith
Publisher: Berriedale Keith

Page 13

THE KARMA-MIMĀMSĀ
answer or demonstrated conclusion (siddhānta), and the relevance of the topic (samgati), but the last head is elsewhere reckoned as the third, and a more natural division omits it, and regards as the fourth and fifth members the answer (uttarapaksa), and the conclusion (nirnaya). Thus in the first Sūtra of the text there are two Adhikaranas, is the study of the Veda necessary for the three upper castes, and is Dharma a proper subject of study? The latter alone needs full discussion, the reply to the former being selfevident. The subject then is formed by the two Vedic precepts, "One should study the Veda," and "One should perform the final bath after studying the Veda.” The doubt is whether one should, after learning the Vedic text, perform the bath and end one's studentship, or remain longer with the teacher to study Dharma. The prima facie view is that the bath should follow immediately on the learning of the text, but the reply is that real study of the Veda is not satisfied by mere reading of the text, and the conclusion, therefore, is that the final bath is to be postponed for a time in order that the student may complete his learning of the text by a study of Dharma. Of all this, however, the Sutra itself has nothing, consisting merely of the words, "Now, therefore, an enquiry into Dharma," and, though in some cases there is more full development of an Adhikarana, it is to the commentators that we must look for enlightenment on the exact issues in dispute. It is not, of course, to be supposed that at any time the Sūtra was handed down without oral explanation, but, as usual, the authentic version was early obscured.
Of these Adhikaranas there are in the Sütra in Mādhava's Teckoning about 915, divided into twelve books with sixty Pādas, the third, sixth, and tenth having eight each in lieu of the normal four, and 2,652 aphorisms (2,742 in another reckoning). Jaimini is the chief authority cited, but mention is made also of other names, such as those of Bädarı, Atreya, and Bādarāyana, who occur also in the Vedanta Sūtra, and of Lābukäyana, Aitaśāyana, etc. Who Taimini was we cannot say. A Jaimini is credited with the author
* Cowell in Colebrooke, Essays I, 326,