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328 OUTLINES OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY are themselves dharma and adharma - the former standing for permitted or obligatory deeds like a sacrifice, the latter for prohibited deeds like drinking or killing an animal, and it is to know what is prescribed or prohibited that we have to seek the aid of the Veda. That is, though there is nothing transcendental about the acts themselves described as dharma and adharma, the fact of their being the means of a supernatural good is not humanly ascertainable. It is from this standpoint that they are represented here as known through revelation and revelation alone.
The Veda reveals dharma, according to both the schools, as the subject of a mandate (vidhi or niyoga)-as something to be accomplished, in accordance with the Mimārsă conclusion that action is the final import of the Veda. But they differ considerably in their view of the motive for obeying that mandate. In fact, this question of the motive has split the Mimāmsakas into several camps. It is not necessary to refer to them all.3 We shall only note the commonly recognized distinction between the two schools. According to the Bhāstas, the Veda not only acquaints us with dharma and adharma, but also specifies the desirable results to be obtained by following the one and abstaining from the other, viz. the attainment of some pleasure or the avoidance of some pain. In the usual example of the jyotistoma sacrifice, it is heaven (svarga) that is held out as the end; in the case of destroying life, it is hell (naraka) against which one is warned. Thus the Bhātta school, like the NyāyaVaišesika (p. 263), believes that pleasure and pain are the only ultimate motives. 'Not even the stupid act,' Kumärila
Yăgădireva dharmaḥ: SD. pp. 25-6. The term yāga strictly stands for a certain resolve which is the prelude to the performance of a sacrifice and is explained as tyaga, or, the spirit of renunciation involved in giving away what belongs to oneself. (Cf. the formula 'no more mine'-na mama-uttered at the time of the offer.) Devatām uddisya dravya-tyago yāgaḥ (Nyāya-mālā-vistara, IV. ii. 27-8). In this sense, dharma would of course be a characteristic of the subject. . See Tantra-rahasya, ch. iv. 3 For a fuller discussion of this and allied topics, reference may be made to Ethics of the Hindus, by Dr. S. K. Maitra (Calcutta Uni.
Pr.).
