India · c. 3rd–2nd c. BCE (traditional)
Jaimini
Traditional author of the Mīmāṃsā Sūtra
His sūtras open with ‘Now, the inquiry into dharma’, define duty as what Vedic injunctions command, and give systematic rules for interpreting ritual texts.
Life and thought
Jaimini is the traditional author of the Mīmāṃsā Sūtra, the founding text of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā (“prior exegesis”), the school devoted to interpreting the ritual portions of the Veda. Almost nothing is known of him; later legend makes him a pupil of Vyāsa. The sūtras, some 2,700 terse aphorisms in twelve books, were probably compiled around the 3rd–2nd century BCE and survive with the commentary of Śabara, from the early centuries CE.
The text opens: “Now, therefore, the inquiry into dharma.” Its answer is that dharma—what we ought to do—is known only from Vedic injunctions, because perception tells us what is, not what ought to be done. To apply those injunctions, the sūtras set out rules of reading: how to tell a command from an explanatory passage, how to resolve apparent conflicts, how to carry details from one rite over to another. These rules made Mīmāṃsā the hermeneutics of Hindu law and theology, used even by its Vedāntin opponents.