Karma Mimansa

Author(s): Berriedale Keith
Publisher: Berriedale Keith

Page 17

THE KARMA-MIMAMSA
from the Vittikāra by Sabarasvāmio there is a reference to Upavarşa with the epithet Bhagavat, implying that he was in the eyes of the Vrttikāra an author of venerable authority It is probable, however, that the citation from the Vrttikära is only a résumé, not a verbatim quotation, and that Sabarasrāmin is responsible for the reference to Upavarşa, the Vrttikāra's proper name, and for this view support may be derived from the mode in which the Vrttikāra and Upavarsa are referred to by Kumārila elsewhere (I1, 3, 16). It this view is rejected, it is possible that he is Bodhāyana, who certainly wrote on the Vedānta Sutra, but this theory is a bare and unnecessary conjecture, seeing that Bodhāyana nowhere else appears as a Mimāmsā authority. Of other, presumably early, commentators we hear of Bhartrmitra and Hari, but there is no reason to identify either of these with the Vettikāra.
The extract from the Vittikára proves that an important addition has been made to the teaching of the Mimarnsà in the shape of the introduction of discussions of the validity of knowledge and its diverse forms. The Sūtra itself is content with the denial of the validity of perception for the purpose of the knowledge of Dharma, and the exaltation of Vedic injunctions as the source of the necessary knowledge; under the influence, perhaps, of the Nyāya the earlier doctrine is now elaborated into a critical examination of the nature of evidence, its validity, and the forms of proof. It is not illegitimate to assume that the Vritikāra indulged also in metaphysical discussions; at any rate Sabarasvāmın enters into a long discussion of the nature of soul, despite his predilection for brevity in treatment of the Sūtra. The Mimamsă therefore by this time enters into the whole field of philosophy, while maintaining its primary duty of expounding the rules by which the ritual can be reconstructed from the Brāhmanas and the Samhitās.
1 In II, 3, 16, he clearly describes the Vrttíkāra asblagavān acaryak; cf. III, 1, 6. These passages Jacobi has overlooked.
Parthasarathi on Slokopritika, p. 4 (v. 10); he is cited on the organ of sound, Nyayamañjari, p. 213.
* Šāstradipika, X, 2, 59, 60.