Karma Mimansa

Author(s): Berriedale Keith
Publisher: Berriedale Keith

Page 88

THE RULES OF RITUAL INTERPRETATION
We have seen that Prabhakara and Kumārila establish by their elaborate epistemological and metaphysical enquiries precisely the same results as were more simply accepted by Jaimini, the fact that duty or righteousness is inculcated by the Veda in the form of injunctions, which are to be carried out on the strength of the authority of that text as uncreated and eternal. The task of Jaimini, in all save the first Pada of Adhyaya I, is, therefore, to lay down the principles which will enable men rightly to perform the actions which the Veda enjoins, but which the vast extent of the Vedic literature renders it difficult to determine. The task falls essentially under two great heads; it is necessary to determine precisely to what texts and in what degree authority attaches, and it is requisite to classify systematically the various forms of injunction with reference to the actions which they enjoin. Both duties are performed, though occasionally in somewhat haphazard manner, in the Sūtra; the more important one, the investigation of injunction, forms the main topic of many later works, while the compendia usually cover more or less adequately the whole field. The details of the discussions have necessarily little general value; they deal with incidents of sacrifices, which flourished only in the early days of the history of the Mīmāmsā, and in many cases the labour devoted to their investigation cannot but seem to us mis-spent. On the other hand, the principles of interpretation developed are often both valuable and interesting as examples of logical analysis. Of the Vedic texts the Brahmanas afford the 1 material for the extraction of the injunctions which are the
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