Mimamsa School

Historical Background and Texts

The Mīmāṃsā school, often called Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā (“earlier inquiry”) to distinguish it from Uttara-Mīmāṃsā (Vedānta), is one of the major orthodox (āstika) philosophical traditions of classical India. It focuses on the interpretation of the Vedas, especially the Brāhmaṇa and Saṁhitā portions, emphasizing ritual action and duty.

As a distinct system, Mīmāṃsā is commonly associated with the Mīmāṃsā Sūtra attributed to Jaimini (c. 3rd–1st century BCE). This foundational text was later commented upon by Śabara in the Śabara-bhāṣya (c. first half of the first millennium CE), which became the basis for subsequent sub-schools.

Two major later traditions emerged:

• The Bhāṭṭa school, associated with Kumārila Bhaṭṭa (7th–8th century CE), who defended Vedic authority against Buddhist critics and elaborated ritual theory.
• The Prābhākara school, founded by Prabhākara Miśra (c. 7th century CE), known for its distinctive views on linguistic meaning and knowledge.

Other important figures include Murāri Miśra and Pārthasārathi Miśra, who helped systematize and transmit Mīmāṃsā ideas into later periods. Although its independent institutional presence declined over time, Mīmāṃsā continued as a technical discipline within traditional Sanskrit scholarship, especially in law (dharmaśāstra), ritual studies, and hermeneutics.

Core Doctrines and Hermeneutics

At its core, Mīmāṃsā is an interpretive theory of scripture and ritual. Its central concern is dharma, understood primarily as ritual obligation known through Vedic injunctions.

A defining doctrine is that the Veda is eternal and authorless (apauruṣeya). Because it is not created by any human or even divine person, it is held to be free from error and uniquely authoritative in matters of duty. Mīmāṃsakas argue that any text relying on a human author could be mistaken or motivated by personal interests, whereas the Veda, being uncreated, offers disinterested guidance.

Mīmāṃsā develops a sophisticated hermeneutics (mīmāṃsā-nyāya) to resolve apparent contradictions and obscurities in Vedic texts. Some key interpretive principles include:

• Contextual coherence (ākāṅkṣā, yogyatā, sannidhi): The meaning of a passage is determined by its grammatical connection, semantic fitness, and proximity to other passages.
• Priority rules for resolving conflicts: for example, more specific injunctions qualify or limit more general ones; later statements can refine earlier ones; and direct injunctions override mere explanatory statements.
• Classification of Vedic sentences into injunctions (vidhi), explanatory passages (arthavāda), mantras, and names (nāmadheya), each with a distinct function in ritual and in conveying meaning.

Mīmāṃsā sees ritual action (karma) as central. Vedic rituals are believed to generate unseen causal forces (apūrva), which mediate between the performance of an act and its delayed results (such as attaining heaven). The notion of apūrva allows Mīmāṃsā to explain how seemingly symbolic or complex ritual actions can be causally effective without any observable mechanism.

Unlike Vedānta, which prioritizes knowledge of ultimate reality (brahma-jñāna), classical Mīmāṃsā gives primacy to correct performance of prescribed acts. Its project is not to describe metaphysical ultimates, but to establish what must be done, by whom, when, and how, according to the Veda.

Epistemology and Ethics

Mīmāṃsā develops an influential epistemology (pramāṇa-śāstra), primarily to defend the reliability of the Veda but also to account for ordinary knowledge. The school typically recognizes several valid means of knowledge, including:

• Perception (pratyakṣa)
• Inference (anumāna)
• Verbal testimony (śabda), with special emphasis on Vedic testimony
• Often comparison (upamāna), presumption (arthāpatti), and non-apprehension (anupalabdhi), depending on sub-school

A central concern is the nature of linguistic meaning. Mīmāṃsā insists that meaning arises from the intrinsic power of words and their syntactic relation, not from the speaker’s intention. This leads to subtle debates between Bhāṭṭa and Prābhākara theorists:

• Bhāṭṭas often analyze meaning as proceeding from individual words to sentence meaning, with special mechanisms to account for implied or secondary meanings.
• Prābhākaras advance the doctrine of “sentence-meaning first” (anvitābhidhāna), holding that words primarily convey their meaning only as connected in a sentence, never fully in isolation.

Ethically, Mīmāṃsā is duty-centered. Dharma is not discovered by introspection or by assessing consequences alone; it is known primarily through Vedic injunctions. An action is righteous when it conforms to the scripturally specified pattern for a person in a given circumstance. While Mīmāṃsakas acknowledge desirable results such as heaven, they frame these outcomes as guaranteed by adherence to duty rather than as the direct aim of moral action.

This approach yields a rule-based ethic: precise ritual and social obligations, graded by status, life-stage, and ritual eligibility, structure moral life. Internal states such as devotion (bhakti) or intention are not, in classical formulations, the primary bearers of moral value. What matters most is correct observance of Vedic prescriptions.

Influence, Criticism, and Legacy

Mīmāṃsā had a profound impact on the intellectual and religious landscape of South Asia. Its methods of textual interpretation influenced dharmaśāstra (Hindu law literature), helping jurists derive legal norms from sacred texts. Logic and epistemology in Nyāya, as well as language theory in later Vedānta and Sanskrit poetics, also engaged deeply with Mīmāṃsā ideas.

Buddhist and Jain philosophers strongly criticized Mīmāṃsā’s doctrines, especially the claims of Vedic infallibility, the reality of apūrva, and the eternal, authorless nature of scripture. Critics argued that the Veda exhibits historical change, internal inconsistency, and dependence on human memory and pedagogy, challenging its alleged transcendence of human authorship.

Within the Hindu tradition, Vedānta appropriated some Mīmāṃsā hermeneutic tools while shifting emphasis from ritual action to liberating knowledge of Brahman. Some later Vedāntins, including Śaṅkara, debated Mīmāṃsā’s prioritization of ritual and its limited treatment of metaphysical questions.

Despite losing prominence as an independent school, Mīmāṃsā survives through its technical legacy. Its theories of:

• scriptural authority
• linguistic meaning
• ritual causality
• and methods for reconciling conflicting texts

continue to inform contemporary scholarship on Indian philosophy, law, and religious practice. Modern interpreters often highlight Mīmāṃsā as one of the most rigorous premodern traditions of hermeneutics and philosophy of language, notable for grounding a complete vision of ethical and social life in the disciplined interpretation of sacred texts.