Origin Of Mimamsa As A School Of Thought A Hypothesis

Author(s): Johannes Bronkhorst
Publisher: Johannes Bronkhorst

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THE ORIGIN OF MĪMĀMSĂ AS A SCHOOL OF THOUGHT: A HYPOTHESIS
Johannes Bronkhorst
Lausanne
We owe to Professor Parpola two illuminating articles on the formation of Mimāmsā! (Parpola 1981; 1994), and at least one further article on this topic is expected from him. In the articles that have so far appeared, Parpola
argued for the original unity of a single Mimämsäsutra ..., which was later split into two: the Pūrvamimamsāsūtra ... ascribed to Jaimini, and the Uttaramīmāmsāsūtra ... ascribed to Bädarāyana. (He) also analysed the teacher quotations of the [Mimamsasutra) and (compared) them with the evidence found in the ritual Sütras of the Veda, (both of the Black Yajurveda (and) the White Yajurveda. (Parpola 1994: 293.)
These two articles, by their very nature and intent, concentrate on the parallels between the Mimāmsāsūtra and the ritual Sūtras, and therefore on the continuity between them. However, Mimāmsă - and from now on I will use this expression primarily to refer to the so-called Pūrvamīmāmsā - is more than merely the outcome of a continuous development of the ideas and concerns which we find in the ritual Sütras. At some period in its history Mimāmsă underwent one or more dramatic breaks with its predecessors, which allowed it to become an independent school of thought.
Two discontinuities in particular deserve attention: (1) The Srauta Sūtras belong, each of them, to their own Vedic schools, and describe the rituals as carried out in those schools; as against this, Mimāmsā claims the unity of ritual practice and the fundamental identity of the ritual acts prescribed in the different schools. (2) Mimāmsă further innovates in introducing and elaborating a number of "philosophical" notions, most important among them the belief in the beginninglessness
I
Parpola speaks of the Mimāmsā; I will simply speak of Mimämsā. Cf. Parpola 1981: 164: "There can be no doubt that the Mimämsäsutra directly continues the tradition of the Vedic ritualists ... The formation of the Mimāmsāsūtra can certainly be reconstructed to a great extent by comparing it carefully with the existing Kalpasūtras."