Mīmāṁsā (Sanskrit: मीमांसा; IAST: Mīmāṁsā) is a Sanskrit word that means "reflection" or "critical investigation" and thus refers to a tradition of contemplation which reflected on the meanings of certain Vedic texts. This tradition is also known as Pūrva-Mīmāṁsā because of its focus on the earlier (pūrva) Vedic texts dealing with ritual actions, and similarly as Karma-Mīmāṁsā due to its focus on ritual action (karma).Chris Bartley (2013), "Purva Mimamsa", in Encyclopaedia of Asian Philosophy (Editor: Oliver Leaman), Routledge, 978-0415862530, pages 443–445. It is one of six Vedic "affirming" (āstika) schools of Hindu philosophy. This particular school is known for its philosophical theories on the nature of Dharma, based on hermeneutics of the Vedas, especially the Brāḥmanas and samhitas.Oliver Leaman (2006), Shruti, in Encyclopaedia of Asian Philosophy, Routledge, , p. 503 The Mīmāṃsā school was foundational and influential for the Vedāntic schools, which were also known as Uttara-Mīmāṁsā for their focus on the "later" (uttara) portions of the Vedas, the Upanishads. While both "earlier" and "later" Mīmāṁsā investigate the aim of human action, they do so with different attitudes towards the necessity of ritual praxis.
Mīmāṁsā has several sub-schools, each defined by its pramana. The Prabhākara sub-school, which takes its name from the seventh-century philosopher Prabhākara, described the five epistemically reliable means to gaining knowledge: pratyakṣa or perception; anumāna or inference; upamāṇa, comparison and analogy; arthāpatti, the use of postulation and derivation from circumstances; and shabda, the word or testimony of past or present reliable experts. The Bhāṭṭa sub-school, from philosopher Kumārila Bhaṭṭa, added a sixth means to its canon; anupalabdhi meant non-perception, or proof by the absence of cognition (e.g., the lack of gunpowder on a suspect's hand).John A. Grimes, A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English, State University of New York Press, , p. 238
The school of Mīmāṁsā consists of both non-theistic and theistic doctrines, but the school showed little interest in systematic examination of the existence of Gods. Rather, it held that the soul is an eternal, omnipresent, inherently active spiritual essence, and focused on the epistemology and metaphysics of Dharma. For the Mīmāṁsā school, Dharma meant rituals and social duties, not Devas, or Gods, because Gods existed only in name. The Mīmāṃsakas also held that Vedas are "eternal, author-less, [and] infallible", that Vedic vidhi, or injunctions and mantras in rituals are prescriptive kārya or actions, and the rituals are of primary importance and merit. They considered the Upaniṣads and other texts related to self-knowledge and spirituality as subsidiary, a philosophical view that Vedānta disagreed with.Peter M. Scharf, The Denotation of Generic Terms in Ancient Indian Philosophy (1996), Chapter 3
While their deep analysis of language and linguistics influenced other schools of Hinduism,Annette Wilke and Oliver Moebus (2011), Sound and Communication: An Aesthetic Cultural History of Sanskrit Hinduism, Walter de Gruyter GmbH (Berlin), , pp. 23–24, 551–663 their views were not shared by others. Mīmāṁsakas considered the purpose and power of language was to clearly prescribe the proper, correct and right. In contrast, Vedāntins extended the scope and value of language as a tool to also describe, develop and derive. Mīmāṁsakās considered orderly, law-driven, procedural life as the central purpose and noblest necessity of Dharma and society, and divine (theistic) sustenance means to that end.
The Mīmāṁsā school is a form of philosophical realism.M. Hiriyanna (1993), Outlines of Indian Philosophy, Motilal Banarsidass, , pp. 323–325 A key text of the Mīmāṁsā school is the Mīmāṁsā Sūtra of Jaimini.M. Hiriyanna (1993), Outlines of Indian Philosophy, Motilal Banarsidass, , pp. 298-335
Terminology Mīmāṁsā (IAST), also romanized Mimansa or Mimamsa, means "reflection, consideration, profound thought, investigation, examination, discussion" in Sanskrit.Mimamsa, Monier Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon (Germany) It also refers to the "examination of the Vedic text" and to a school of Hindu philosophy that is also known as ("prior" inquiry, also ), in contrast to ("posterior" inquiry, also ) – the opposing school of Vedanta. This division is based on classification of the Vedic texts into , the early sections of the Veda treating of mantras and rituals (Samhitas and Brahmanas), and the dealing with the meditation, reflection and knowledge of Self, Oneness, Brahman (the Upaniṣads). Between the Samhitas and Brahmanas, the Mīmāṁsā school places greater emphasis on the Brahmanas – the part of Vedas that is a commentary on Vedic rituals.M. Hiriyanna (1993), Outlines of Indian Philosophy, Motilal Banarsidass, , p. 299
The word comes from the desiderative stem of √man (Macdonell, A. A, 1883, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary), from Proto-Indo-European *men- (“to think”). Donald Davis translates Mīmāṁsā as the "desire to think", and in colloquial historical context as "how to think and interpret things". In the last centuries of the first millennium BCE, the word Mīmāṁsā began to denote the thoughts on and interpretation of the Vedas, first as Pūrva-Mīmāṁsā for rituals portions in the earlier layers of texts in the Vedas, and as Uttara-Mīmāṁsā for the philosophical portions in the last layers. Over time, Pūrva-Mīmāṁsā was just known as the Mīmāṁsā school, and the Uttara-Mīmāṁsā as the Vedanta school.
Mīmāṁsā scholars are referred to as Mīmāṁsākas.
Development Foundational text The foundational text for the Mīmāṁsā school is the Purva Mīmāṁsā Sutras of Jaimini (c. 3rd to 2nd century BCE). However, Anthony Kennedy Warder notes that Mīmāṃsā, as a direct continuation of archaic Vedic ritualism, and Saṁkhya had most definitely already started taking shape prior to the systematic emergence of other orthodox and heterodox schools of Indian philosophy in the mid-1st millennium BCE. The Mīmāṁsā Sūtras explicitly aim to establish the correct way to interpret the Vedas.
Commentarial tradition Śabara is the first commentator of the , whose work is extant. His bhāṣya (commentary) is the basis of all later works of . The commentaries on the by Bhartṛmitra, Bhavadāsa, Hari, and Upavarṣa are no longer extant.
Kumārila Bhaṭṭa, Mandana Miśra, Pārthasārathi Miśra, Sucarita Miśra, Ramakrishna Bhatta, Madhava Subhodini, Sankara Bhatta, Krsnayajvan, Anantadeva, Gaga Bhatta, Ragavendra Tirtha, Vijayindra Tirtha, Appayya Dikshitar, Paruthiyur Krishna Sastri, Mahomahapadyaya Sri Ramsubba Sastri, Sri Venkatsubba Sastri, Sri A. Chinnaswami Sastri, and Sengalipuram Vaidhyanatha Dikshitar were scholars of Mīmāṁsā. The school reached its height with Kumārila Bhaṭṭa and Prabhākara (fl. ca. 700 CE).
Kumārila Bhaṭṭa (7th century CE), the founder of the first school of Mīmāṁsā, commented on both the Mīmāṁsā and its . His treatise consists of 3 parts, the , the , and the . Maṇdana Miśra (8th century CE) was a follower of Kumārila who wrote the Vidhiviveka and the . There are several commentaries on the works of Kumārila. Sucarita Miśra wrote a (commentary) on the . Someśvara Bhaṭṭa wrote the , also known as the , a commentary on the . Pārthasārathi Miśra wrote the (1300 CE), another commentary on the . He also wrote the , an independent work on Mīmāṁsā, and the Tantraratna. Veṅkaṭa Dīkṣita's is a commentary on the .
Prabhākara (8th century CE), the originator of the second school of Mīmāṁsā, wrote his commentary on the . Śālikanātha's (ninth century CE) is a commentary on the . His is an independent work of this school and the is a brief explanation of the . Bhavanātha's deals with the views of this school in detail.
The founder of the third school of Mīmāṁsā was Murāri, whose works have not reached us.
Āpadeva (17th century) wrote an elementary work on Mīmāṁsā, known as or . The of Laugākṣi Bhāskara is based on the . Vedānta Deśika's was an attempt to combine the views of the Mīmāṁsā and Vedānta schools.Radhakrishnan, S. Indian Philosophy, Vol. II, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2006, , pp.376–78
Darśana (philosophy) – central concerns
Mīmāṁsā is one of the six classical Hindu darśanas. It is among the earliest schools of Hindu philosophies. It has attracted relatively less scholarly study, although its theories and particularly its questions on exegesis and theology have been highly influential on all classical Indian philosophies. Its analysis of language has been of central importance to the legal literature of India.
Ancient Mīmāṁsā's central concern was epistemology (pramana), that is what are the reliable means to knowledge. It debated not only "how does man ever learn or know, whatever he knows", but also whether the nature of all knowledge is inherently circular, whether those such as foundationalists who critique the validity of any "justified beliefs" and knowledge system make flawed presumptions of the very premises they critique, and how to correctly interpret and avoid incorrectly interpreting dharma texts such as the Vedas. It asked questions such as "what is devata (god)?", "are rituals dedicated to devatas efficacious?", "what makes anything efficacious?", and "Can it be proved that the Vedas, or any canonical text in any system of thought, is fallible or infallible (svatah pramanya, intrinsically valid)? If so, how?" and others. To Mīmāṁsā scholars, the nature of non-empirical knowledge and human means to it are such that one can never demonstrate certainty, one can only falsify knowledge claims, in some cases. According to Francis Clooney, the Mīmāṁsā school is "one of the most distinctively Hindu forms of thinking; it is without real parallel elsewhere in the world".
The central text of the Mīmāṁsā school is Jamini's Mīmāṁsā Sutras, accompanied by the historically influential commentary of Sabara (Śabarabhāṣya) and Kumarila Bhatta's commentary (Ślokavārttika) on Sabara's commentary. Together, these texts develop and apply the rules of language analysis (such as the rules of contradiction), asserting that one must not only examine injunctive propositions in any scripture but also examine the alternate related or reverse propositions for better understanding. They suggested that to reach correct and valid knowledge it is not only sufficient to demand proof of a proposition, it is important to give proof of a proposition's negative as well as declare and prove one's preferred propositions. Further, they asserted that whenever perception is not the means of direct proof and knowledge, one cannot prove such non-empirical propositions to be "true or not true", rather one can only prove a non-empirical proposition is "false, not false, or uncertain".