Mimamsa Sutra

Wprowadzenie

The founding text of Purva Mimamsa (“prior enquiry”), the school devoted to the correct interpretation of the ritual portions of the Veda. Its short aphorisms, attributed to Jaimini, open by declaring that the enquiry into dharma must therefore begin now. They discuss how to recognise which Vedic sentences are injunctions, how the elements of a ritual relate to each other and how one ritual can serve as the model for others. Along the way the sutras argue that the relation between word and meaning is innate rather than conventional – the basis for the later claim that the Veda has no author. The text is hardly understandable without commentaries, of which Shabara’s is the oldest preserved; its rules of interpretation were later also applied in Hindu law.

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Podjęte w

• Shlokavarttikaok. 640 · Kumarila Bhatta