Karma Mimansa

Author(s): Berriedale Keith
Publisher: Berriedale Keith

Page 51

42
THE KARMA-MIMAMSA
according implicit belief to the assertions made to us by any merely human authority.
There is an obvious difficulty in this reasoning, when it is remembered that Prabhākara, like the Vrttikāra, insists on the self-evidence of cognitions, from which it would seem to follow that the assertions of any man are prima facie valid, until sublated by better evidence. Kumārila, who is always anxious to accommodate the views of the school to popular beliefs, is at the same time more in harmony with the tenets of the school in adopting a doctrine, which does not involve the general denial of the validity of human testimony. He adopts, therefore, the plan of distinguishing testimony as human and super-human (apauruşeyz), while admitting both as valid, though for different reasons In the case of the Veda there is no author, and therefore the possibility of defects is absolutely precluded In the case of human testimony its validity may be impaired by defects in the speaker, but the presence of excellencies in him precludes the presence of defects, so that if we are assured of the latter we can be assured that the defects do not exist. But it must not be understood that the excellencies positively contribute to the validity of his utterances, which they possess of themselves; the excellencies are of service merely in assuring us of the absence of those defects, which might cause his testimony to be suspect.
The Veda, however, has special claims on our regard, and the Mimāmsa Sūtra (I, 1, 24-28) meets detailed criticisms of its claim to eternity. Thus it is argued against its validity that parts of it bear names of men, or refer to human beings, to which Jaimini replies that passages bear names of persons who studied them in detail, and that apparent human names in the Veda are really mere cases of homonymns; thus, as Sabarasvāmin points out, Pravāhana is not the name of a man, but an epithet, "The excellent carrier." Similarly, apparently absurd statements, such as "The cows performed a sacrificial session," are to be understood merely as emphasising the value of some ritual action by way of hyperbole, not as showing that the authors of the Veda were foolish mortals. The eternity of words, and the fact that it alone serves to reveal the unseen potency, which