India · c. 2nd c. BCE – 18th c. CE
Mīmāṃsā
The Veda is eternal and authorless, its injunctions are the only source of knowledge about duty (dharma), and any cognition is valid unless proved otherwise.
How do we know our duty, and why trust the Veda?
As Vedic ritual grew complex and was challenged by Buddhists and Jains, ritual specialists needed rules for interpreting the texts and a defence of their authority. Jaimini’s sūtras set out those rules; in the 7th century Kumārila Bhaṭṭa and Prabhākara turned them into a full theory of knowledge.
Duty concerns what ought to be done and what results it brings later, which no perception can reach, so it can be known only from a text. A text with no author has no author’s errors or deceptions, and since no author of the Veda is remembered, it is authorless and reliable. And every cognition must be valid by itself (svataḥ prāmāṇya) unless defeated—otherwise we would need an endless chain of checks.
- The Veda is eternal and authorless (apauruṣeya).
- Dharma is known only from Vedic injunction.
- Cognitions are intrinsically valid until defeated.
Its rules of interpretation underlie Hindu legal reasoning (dharmaśāstra) and Vedāntic exegesis, and its default trust in cognition anticipates modern debates on testimony and justification.
Thinkers
c. 3rd–2nd c. BCE (traditional)JaiminiTraditional author of the Mīmāṃsā Sūtrafl. c. 660Kumārila BhaṭṭaMīmāṃsā champion of Vedic authority against the BuddhistsKey texts
Where it came from
Reacted againstEarly Buddhism & AbhidharmaKumārila defended Vedic authority and a lasting self against Buddhist critics, and denied that the Buddha or anyone could be omniscient.
What it led to
Opposed byAdvaita VedāntaŚaṅkara rejected Mīmāṃsā’s view that ritual action leads to the highest good: only knowledge of Brahman liberates.