Ethno-Indology 5

Mimamsanyayasamgraha

A Compendium of the principles of Mimamsa

Bearbeitet von
Mahadeva Vedantin, James Benson

1. Auflage 2010. Buch. 905 S. Hardcover

ISBN 978 3 447 05722 6
Format (B x L): 17 x 24 cm

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 Mahādeva Vedāntin

Mı̄mām. sānyāyasam. graha

A Compendium of the Principles of Mı̄mām.sā

Edited and Translated by

James Benson

2010
Harrassowitz Verlag . Wiesbaden

ISSN 1860-2053
ISBN 978-3-447-05722-6
 Contents

Acknowledgments ......................................................................................... 9
Introduction .................................................................................................... 11
General Background to the Present Work ............................................... 11
The Author and Date ............................................................................... 16
Distinctive Features of the MNS ............................................................. 18
The Place of MNS in Late Mīmāṃsā Literature ..................................... 21
The MNS and Mahādeva’s Other Works ................................................ 23
The Edition .............................................................................................. 24
The Aims and Procedures of Mīmāṃsā .................................................. 27
Brief Outline of the Contents of the MNS ............................................... 28
The Analysis of Sentences....................................................................... 29
The Analysis of Rites .............................................................................. 32
Textual Sources of dharma: śruti and smṛti ............................................ 35
The Invisible Structure of Rites............................................................... 36
Economy of Analysis .............................................................................. 37
The Translation........................................................................................ 37
The Format of Composition .................................................................... 39
A Preview of the Text: Five Topics......................................................... 39
Notes on Certain Vocabulary Items ........................................................ 46
The Text .......................................................................................................... 51
Book 1 ..................................................................................................... 51
Book 2 ..................................................................................................... 73
Book 3 ..................................................................................................... 93
Book 4 ..................................................................................................... 133
Book 5 ..................................................................................................... 150
Book 6 ..................................................................................................... 165
Book 7 ..................................................................................................... 190
Book 8 ..................................................................................................... 197
Book 9 ..................................................................................................... 204
Book 10 ................................................................................................... 233
8 Contents

Book 11 ................................................................................................... 291

Book 12 ................................................................................................... 308
The Translation .............................................................................................. 325
Book 1 ..................................................................................................... 325
Book 2 ..................................................................................................... 367
Book 3 ..................................................................................................... 399
Book 4 ..................................................................................................... 463
Book 5 ..................................................................................................... 493
Book 6 ..................................................................................................... 519
Book 7 ..................................................................................................... 561
Book 8 ..................................................................................................... 576
Book 9 ..................................................................................................... 591
Book 10 ................................................................................................... 645
Book 11 ................................................................................................... 737
Book 12 ................................................................................................... 768
Summary of the MNS ................................................................................... 797
Quotations in the MNS ................................................................................. 835
Index ................................................................................................................ 857
I Names and Subjects .............................................................................. 857
II Texts and Individuals Referred to in the MNS .................................... 886
III Modern Authorities ............................................................................ 886
IV Glosses in the MNS ........................................................................... 889
Abbreviations and Bibliography ................................................................. 891
Primary sources ....................................................................................... 891
Secondary sources ................................................................................... 899
 Introduction

General Background to the Present Work

The Sanskrit word “mīmāṃsā”, which figures in the title of this book,
denotes the Indian scholastic tradition dedicated to the study of the language
of the veda, that is, the great corpus of texts which make up the earliest strata
of ancient Indian literature. These texts were composed in Sanskrit over a
period of about a thousand years, starting sometime in the mid to late second
millennium B.C. They are mainly concerned with elaborate sacrificial
rituals, either enjoining their performance, commenting on them, or provi-
ding the various liturgical formulae and hymns which would have accompa-
nied them. The Mimāṃsā was only one of a number of scholarly traditions
which appear to have arisen for the purpose of understanding and preserving
these ancient texts. Its particular task was to establish general principles for
determining the precise meanings of the individual sentences which consti-
tuted them. Related disciplines included grammar, metrics, and etymological
analysis. The tradition of Mīmāṃsā scholarship produced a vast body of
literature, which continued to be written as late as the 18th century A.D.1
At an early but undetermined point in the literary tradition, two branches
of the Mīmāṃsā were recognized, the Pūrva- (Earlier) and the Uttara-
(Later). The Pūrvamīṃāṃsā, which is the subject of the present work (and
for which the simple word “Mīmāṃsā” will be used), focused primarily on
the chronologically earlier portions of the veda, which for the most part con-
cerned the specific forms of rituals. The Uttaramīmāṃsā dealt with subjects
such as the ultimate, esoteric nature of the ritual, the cosmos, and man, top-
ics which formed the subject matter of the later parts of the veda, in texts
known as the upaniṣads. The tradition itself did not recognize chronology in
vedic literature, but understood that the study of the ritual was in some sense

—————
1 For a basic history of the subject, see Jean-Marie Verpoorten, Mīmāṃsā Literature,
and Umesha Mishra, “Critical Bibliography of Mīmāṃsā”, an appendix to Ganga-
natha Jha's Pūrvamīmāṃsā in its Sources.
12 Introduction

preliminary (pūrva), and that of its esoteric nature and other cosmic matters,
subsequent and conclusive (uttara).2
As in certain other Sanskrit literary traditions, the earliest Mīmāṃsā text
to survive is a sūtra. It is difficult to characterize sūtra texts as a whole, but
they typically present the basic rules or principles of a doctrinal system in a
concise and systematic way, with or without explicit argumentation.3 In the
case of Mīmāṃsā, the sūtra is ascribed to Jaimini (JS), and consists of a
systematically ordered collection of approximately 2,745 short statements,
also referred to individually as sūtras.4 The identity and date of Jaimini are
uncertain, but it is possible that the sūtra ascribed to him was composed
sometime in the fourth to second century B.C.5 The only early and complete
commentary (bhāṣya) we have on the sūtra was written by Śabara, who is

—————
2 For an account of the various explanations which have been offered for the terms
“Pūrvamīmāṃsā” and “Uttaramīmāṃsā”, see Asko Parpola, “On the Formation of
the Mīmāṃsā and the Problems concerning Jaimini, With particular reference to the
teacher quotations and the Vedic schools”, (Part I) Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde
Südasiens, 25, 1981, pp. 145–9. Parpola is one of a number of scholars who believe
that what was originally a single tradition of Mīmāṃsā divided into two. The two
Mīmāṃsās are sometimes referred to as the Karmamīmāṃsā and the Brahma-
mīmāṃsā, i.e., the Mīmāṃsās which deal with ritual action (karman) and with the
mystical absolute (brahman).
3 This is only a rough description, and applies to certain sūtra texts much better than
to others. For an account of the development and variety of sūtra literature, see L.
Renou, “Sur le genre du sūtra dans la littérature sanskrite”, Journal Asiatique, 251,
1963, pp. 163–211.
4 These are arranged in twelve books (adhyāyas), with four chapters (pādas) in each,
except for Books 3, 6, and 10, which have eight chapters each. The 555 sūtras of the
Uttaramīmāṃsā, also referred to as the Vedāntasūtra, are attributed to Bādarāyaṇa.
They are arranged in four books with four chapters in each. A further set of 465 sū-
tras, known as the Saṃkarṣa(ṇa)kāṇḍa, are sometimes attributed to Jaimini and
viewed as a supplement to his work. It too is divided into four books, with four
chapters in each. See Verpoorten, pp. 6–7.
5 This date is largely based on the close similarity of the sūtra with Kātyāyana's
Vārttika, a work directed to Pāṇini's grammar, and dated roughly to this period. A
later date of approximately the second century A.D. is sometimes suggested, based
on the generally accepted later date assigned to our text of the Vedāntasūtra, and the
affinity between the two texts. For a review of the relevant literature, see Parpola,
“On the Formation”, Part II, pp. 300–1. For an important study of Jaimini's work
and the problems of its interpretation, see F. Clooney, Thinking Ritually, Rediscove-
ring the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā of Jaimini.
 General Background to the Present Work 13

commonly dated to the period between 200 and 400 A.D.6 This work, the
Śābarabhāṣya, identifies somewhat more than 900 distinct topics (adhika-
raṇas) as underlying the sūtra. These topics are arranged sequentially, each
one being dealt with by one or more of the individual sūtras. They each pose
and answer questions, usually about the correct interpretation of one or more
specific sentences quoted from the corpus of vedic texts. This system of top-
ics, as identified by Śabara, provided the framework for much of the subse-
quent scholarly discussion of the system.
Already by the time of Śabara, the Mīmāṃsā doctrine, which began as an
exegetical tradition, had developed a set of complementary philosophical
positions. To its linguistic exegesis, epistemological theory was easily
grafted. The latter considered not only how language worked, but how other
types of knowledge, such as that based on perception or inference, were
properly generated. Other philosophical doctrines, concerning the nature and
the structure of the world, were gradually formulated as well. Although one
can easily see how the exegetical and the philosophical aspects of Mīmāṃsā
merge into each other, the construction of a philosophical wing to the system
seems clearly to have been a response to contemporary intellectual
developments.
In the 7th century A.D., the scholars Kumārila Bhaṭṭa and Prabhākara
Miśra wrote treatises which formed the basis of two distinctive schools of
Mīmāṃsā, namely, the Bhāṭṭa (or Kaumārila) and the Prābhākara.7 These
writers differed at a number of points in their expositions, both exegetical
and philosophical. The rival schools they created continued to produce texts
for centuries. Some of these works focused directly on the topics identified
by Śabara, with little regard for the individual sūtras. Others took the form
of independent treatises, not bound by the order of sūtras or topics. Many
were simply commentaries or subcommentaries on earlier works. The sur-
—————
6 In his History of Dharmaśāstra, P.V. Kane dates Śabara to the period between 200
and 400 A.D., suggesting that he probably lived closer to the first date (HDS Vol.
V.2, p. 1197). Verpoorten prefers the period between 350 and 400 A.D. (p. 8).
7 The relation between these two scholars is not clear, but it seems likely that they
were close contemporaries. Their major Mīmāṃsā works are commentaries on
Śabara's text. Kumārila wrote the Ślokavārttika (on the first chapter of Book One),
the Tantravārttika (TV) (on the rest of Book One and Books Two and Three), and
the Ṭupṭīkā (on Books Four through Twelve). It seems that he also wrote a
Bṛhaṭṭīkā, which is known only from quotations given by the Buddhist Śāntarakṣita
in his Tattvasaṃgraha (Verpoorten, p. 30). Prabhākara wrote the Bṛhatī and the
Laghvī commentaries. The first is extant through the second chapter of Book Six,
and the second is known only from the works of other scholars (Verpoorten, p. 32).
14 Introduction

viving literature of the Bhāṭṭa school is more extensive than that of the
Prābhākara, and appears to have been studied more widely in India.8
The Mīmāṃsānyāyasaṃgraha (A Compendium of the Principles of
Mīmāṃsā) (MNS), which is the subject of the present book, was written by
the scholar Mahādeva Vedāntin in the late 17th or early 18th century. It be-
longs to the Bhāṭṭa tradition of Mīmāṃsā, and consists of summaries of 904
topics. It borrows heavily from similarly structured works by three major
scholars in the Bhāṭṭa tradition, the Śāstradīpikā (Lamp on the Science) (ŚD)
of Pārthasārathi Miśra (11th to 12th centuries), the Jaiminīyanyāyamālā
(Garland of Principles of Jaimini’s Doctrine) (JNM) with the autocommen-
tary Vistara (Full Display (of the Garland etc.)) (JNMV) of Mādhava (14th
century), and the Bhāṭṭadīpikā (Lamp on the Doctrine of (Kumārila) Bhaṭṭa)
(BhD) of Khaṇḍadeva (17th century). The last of these authors, Khaṇḍadeva,
is the scholar most closely associated with the creation of the “New School”
of Mīmāṃsā, a development in the history of Mīmāṃsā literature which had
parallels in the “New Schools” of Grammar and Logic.
****
Most of the vedic rituals with which the Mīmāṃsā is concerned have not
been performed in India widely or on a regular basis for several hundred
years. Some seem to have become defunct long ago, and some were so
elaborate that it is possible that they were never performed at all.9 Contem-
porary practice, however, was not an express concern of the authors. The
point of studying the old rituals in detail seems not to have been to revive or
resurrect those which had fallen into disuse, or to restore to a more correct
form those which had not, and in any case there existed ritual manuals which
presumably would have sufficed for any required performance. Exactly why
scholars continued to analyze the ancient texts centuries after the passing
away or decline in practice of the rituals they prescribe is a complex ques-
tion, which would require a major study to answer. Parts of the answer
would certainly include the prestige and patronage of vedic learning
generally (although this itself requires explanation), and the continued

—————
8 A third school of Mīmāṃsā was attributed to Murāri Miśra, who lived in the 12th to
13th centuries, but very little of his work has been published. See Verpoorten, p. 44.
9 For an account of the survival of vedic rituals into modern times, see C.G. Kashikar
and Asko Parpola, “Śrauta Traditions in Recent Times”, in F. Staal, Agni: The Vedic
Ritual of the Fire Altar, Vol. II, pp. 199–251. See also F. Smith, The Vedic Sacrifice
in Transition, pp. 1–9.
 General Background to the Present Work 15

practice in Indian society of younger and much simpler Hindu rituals.10 The
answer would also take into account the importance the Mīmāṃsā had for
related disciplines, which also had vedic connections, but which had devel-
oped far beyond them in a way that Mīmāṃsā never did. Specifically, the
tradition of law (Dharmaśāstra) seems always to have recognized its intel-
lectual foundation in Mīmāṃsā, and grammar, perhaps the greatest of all the
Indian intellectual traditions, was always in some degree of contact with
Mīmāṃsā over competing or agreed claims in the field of linguistic analysis.
It is of course possible to suggest that the prestige of these subjects was due
in part to their affiliation with the more explicitly vedic tradition of
Mīmāṃsā.
Any interesting account of the extraordinary longevity of Mīmāṃsā
clearly requires a close familiarity with what its texts actually say. Although
current research in this area is strong, a very great deal of basic work needs
to be done before we can understand the position of these texts in Sanskrit
literary history. All fields of Sanskrit are understudied, but there may be
special reasons (apart from there being too few Sanskritists generally) for
the rather large gaps in our understanding of Mīmāṃsā. The subject has no
familiar counterpart outside the Indian tradition. This is not to say that it is
an intellectual tradition without parallels, but only that it is not clear, or at
least not well-known, what those parallels might be. Also, the three fields of
Sanskrit which are closest to it, and which have much higher profiles in
modern times, namely, vedic studies, law, and grammar, are themselves so
large that the students of these subjects, who are probably in the best
position to peer over the fence to see what the Mīmāṃsā actually is, have far
too much unfinished work of their own to make a foray into neighboring
territory. It is true that the philosophical wing of Mīmāṃsā has always
drawn the attention of students of Indian philosophy, but the bedrock of the
system lies more or less outside the range of their primary interests.11
The goal of the present book is to give readers access to a hitherto
unpublished Sanskrit text which was written about 300 years ago as an
introduction to Mīmāṃsā doctrines. The text itself is not particularly origi-
—————
10 The classic work on the position of the veda in later Indian literature is L. Renou's
short monograph, Le Destin du Véda dans L' Inde (which has been translated into
English).
11 Scholarly interest in Mīmāṃsā has grown considerably over the last twenty-five
years or so, largely in Japan and the United States, but elsewhere as well. The
remarks above are intended merely to suggest reasons as to why there is so much
basic work left to do.
16 Introduction

nal, but it was never its purpose to be so. Its author tells us that his intention
is to give beginners a quick and concise understanding of the system. The
resulting work, far shorter than the more famous (and still untranslated) texts
of Pārthasārathi Miśra, Mādhava, and Khaṇḍadeva, from which it drew most
of its material, could perhaps still serve its original function.

The Author and Date

Mahādeva Vedāntin, variously known as Mahādevabhaṭṭa, Vedānti Mahā-
devabhaṭṭa, Mahādeva Sarasvatī, Mahādevānanda Sarasvatī, Mahādeva
Sarasvatī Vedāntin, and Vedānti Mahādeva, was a pupil of Svayaṃprakāśa-
tīrtha, also known as Svayaṃprakāsa Sarasvatī, Svayaṃprakāśānanda Sara-
svatī, and Saccidānanda Sarasvatī.12 He seems to have been active at the end
of the seventeenth century (see below). Apart from the MNS, Mahādeva
wrote works on Vedānta, Sāṃkhya, and lexicography. Texts by him or
attributed to him include the following:
1) Uṇādikośa, or Nijavinoda (a commentary on Sanskrit words formed by
the uṇādisūtras, a set of grammatical rules supplementary to Pāṇini’s
Aṣṭādhyāyī). Edited by K. Kunjunni Raja, Madras University Sanskrit
Series, 21, University of Madras, 1956.
2) Tattvānusaṃdhāna (a treatise on Advaitavedānta). Editions: 1)
Madras, 1889 (in Telegu script); 2) Ramasimha, ed., with editor’s Anubha-
vasāgara and Hindi Advaitacintāmaṇi, Ajmer, 1895; 3) Girendranatha Dutt
and Ananta Krishna Sastri, eds., Bibliotheca Indica, 151, Calcutta, 1901–22;
4) Rama Sastri Tailanga, ed., with the Vedāntasūtras and Śaṃkarānanda’s
Dīpikā, Benares Sanskrit Series, 24, 1904–06. (See New Catalogus Catalo-
gorum, VIII, p. 74–5).

—————
12 In the colophons of the manuscripts of the MNS the author is identified as Mahāde-
vabhaṭṭa and Vedānti Mahādevabhaṭṭa, in colophons to the Tattvānusaṃdhāna and
the Advaitacintākaustubha as Mahādeva Sarasvatī and Mahādevānanda Sarasvatī,
respectively, in the colophon of the Uṇādikośa and the introductory verse of the
Sāṃkhyasūtravṛttisāra as Vedānti Mahādeva, and in the colophon of the Calcutta
manuscript of the Tattvacandrikā as Mahādeva Sarvasvatī. He refers to his teacher
in the final verses of the MNS and in the initial and final verses of the Viṣṇunāma-
sahasravyākhyā as Svayaṃprakāśatīrtha, in the colophon to the Tattvacandrikā as
Saccidānanda Sarasvatī, and in the colophons to the Tattvānusaṃdhāna and the
Advaitacintākaustubha as Svayaṃprakāśānanda Sarasvatī. (See K. Kunjunni Raja's
Uṇādikośa of Mahādeva Vedāntin, Introduction, p. ii.)