Philosophies of India

SR No.: 007309
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell
Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd
Publication Year: 1953
Total Pages: 709
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 34 MB

Page 630

APPENDIX A
The MĪMĀNISĀ and VEDĀNTA likewise belong together, both representing the point of view of the "Fourth” (turiya), that transcendent nondual principle (brahinan) which is beyond the province of the world-supporting duad (purușa-praksti). The Vedānta has been discussed, supra, pp. 409-463, as the final truth or "end" (anta) of the Vedas; the Mimāṁsā is concerned with a clarification of the liturgical aspect of the same sacred books. Indeed, the term mimāṁsā-meaning, literally, "deep thought, consideration, reflection, exposition," and when applied to philosophy, “reflection on, or exposition of, the Vedas”-properly is applied to both of these philosophies: respectively, as 1. pūrva-mīmārsā ("the first reflection; exposition of the first part [of the Vedas)') or karma-mimāṁsā (“the study of (ritual] action") and 2. uttara-mīmāṁsā (“the second reflection; exposition of the second part [of the Vedas]”) or brahma-mīmāṁsā ("the contemplation of Brahman").
Pūrva-mīmāṁsā, Karma-mīmāṁsā, or more usually simply the Mimāṁsā, is a kind of scholastic, priestly science, which defines the orthodox patterns of Brāhmanic liturgical life. These inherited patterns are not always clearly designated in the Vedas themselves; hence already in the later Brāhmaṇas ? the term mīmāṁsā occurs, where it alrcady denotes a discussion of some point of ritual practice. During the following centuries, with the proliferation of variant priestly readings, the demand for this science of definitive reasoning must have increased. Somewhere between 200 and 450 A.D.-that is to say, about the time of the crystallization of the Vedānta-its findings were summarized in the Pūrvamimārsā-sūtra of Jaimini; but this basic textbook presupposes a long history of argument. “There is evidence,” states A. B. Keith, "that the science was in full vogue as carly as the middle of the third century B.C." 3
2 Cf. supra, p. 8, Editor's note.
8 Arthur Berricdale Keith, The Karma-Mimämsä, The Heritage of India Series, London and Calcutta, 1921, pp. 2-8.
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