Vedānta as Mīmāṃsā

Johannes Bronkhorst

This article examines principles of Upaniṣadic interpretation in early Vedānta. Special attention is paid to the Brahma-Sūtras 1.4.19–22. According to commentators, these four sūtras form one topic (adhikaraṇa) devoted to the interpretation of Br̥hadāraṇyaka-Upaniṣad 2.4/4.5. The last three sūtras are particularly interesting because they appear as citations of three older authority figures named Āśmarathya, Auḍulomi and Kaśakr̥tsna. These three sūtras raise the question of a way of reconciling Upaniṣadic passages, which is very important for the early history of Vedānta as a system of Upaniṣadic exegesis. Another interesting occurrence in this topic are the words vākya in the first, and liṅga in the second sūtra, two of the six means of determining the usage of ritual subsidiaries in Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā. In Śaṅkara's commentary, another set of exegetical principles appear, that might be originally Vedāntic. Electronic article available on the link: http://manas.bg/en/indiya/aspects-of-early-upanishadic-exegesis

“Adaptive reuse,” an influential theoretical concept in the field of architecture, describes the reuse of partly reconstructed buildings for purposes different from those for which they were originally erected. In the present volume, this concept is for the first time transferred from its edificial application to a wider specter of cultural activities, namely to the composition of texts and to the creation of concepts and rituals. The volume opens with an introduction in which the editors explain their understanding of of adaptive reuse and its innovative application to cultural studies. They differentiate between simple re-use and adaptive reuse as two ideal types of re(-)use. Simple re-use is the resumption of a previous use without a strong change of purpose. An item is simply used again, because it is readily available. Adaptive reuse implies more. The reuser aims at well-definable purposes, e.g., adding prestige, credibility or authority to the newly created work. The reused elements have therefore to be recognizable. Adaptive reuse ideally involves a strong change of usage, and it is not primarily motivated economically. The twelve main chapters of the volume are divided into four thematic sections. Section 1, “Adaptive Reuse of Indian Philosophy and Other Systems of Knowledge,” consists of five case studies by Philipp Maas, Himal Trikha, Ivan Andrijanic, Yasutaka Muroya and Malhar Kulkarni dealing with the adaptive reuse of Sanskrit philosophical and grammatical texts in Sanskrit works of philosophy, grammar and poetry. In all these cases, adaptive reuse serves the creation of new forms and contents within a traditionally established framework in which the prestige of the sources of adaptive reuse reflects upon its target. In the second section, entitled “Adaptive Reuse of Tropes,” Elena Mucciarelli and Cristina Bignami analyze the motif of the chariot in Vedic, medieval and contemporary works and rituals and fruitfully employ the concept of adaptive reuse in various religious contexts. The chapters of the third section “Adaptive Reuse of Untraced and Virtual Texts” by Daniele Cuneo, Kiyokazu Okita, Elisa Freschi and Cezary Galewicz deal again with philosophical and religious texts, this time focusing on the adaptive reuse of sources that are no longer available or did never exist. It emerges from these studies that reuse of virtual texts was frequently intended to support the introduction of innovations into established traditions. In some cases, the prestige of the reusing works even reflected back on the allegedly reused source. Finally, the chapter by Sven Sellmer in the fourth section “Reuse from the Perspective of the Digital Humanities” deals with the computer-based identification of possibly reused text-passages in epic literature that otherwise would remain undetectable.

Johannes Bronkhorst Vedānta as Mīmāṃsā* * I thank Roque Mesquita for help and advise. (published in: Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta: Interaction and Continuity. Ed. Johannes Bronkhorst. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. (Papers of the 12th World Sanskrit Conference, 10.3.) 2007. Pp. 1-91) §0. Introduction §1. Were the Pūrva- and Uttaramīmāṃsā originally one system? §2. Vedāntins who are not Mīmāṃsakas §3. Vedāntins who are Mīmāṃsakas §3.1. Śaṅkara §3.2. Other early commentators on the Brahma Sūtra §3.3. Maṇḍana Miśra (p. 39) §4. Vedānta and liberation as part of Karma-Mīmāṃsā §5. Pūrva-Mīmāṃsāsūtra, Uttara-Mīmāṃsāsūtra and the teacher quotations §6. Conclusions References Abbreviations §0. Introduction The Śābara Bhāṣya is the oldest surviving commentary on the Pūrvamīmāṃsā Sūtra. Śabara's Bhāṣya is remarkable for various reasons. Śabara here expresses ideas which differ from those of most of his contemporaries. Most remarkable is the absence of any reference whatsoever to the ideas of rebirth and liberation. Śabara's Bhāṣya deals with Vedic ritual, which as a rule leads to heaven. The absence of ideas which yet pervade much of Indian thought from the days of the early Upaniṣads onward could be explained by the conservative nature of Pūrvamīmāṃsā. As a matter of fact, most of Vedic literature is not concerned with rebirth and liberation either, and the Upaniṣads themselves reveal that this doctrine was an innovation. It may not necessarily have been accepted by all sacrificing Brahmins, and indeed, later texts such as the Mahābhārata show very little awareness of rebirth and liberation in their narrative parts, even though there can be no doubt that these texts are more recent than the early Upaniṣads. One might therefore think that the new ideas of rebirth and liberation took a long time to find general acceptance, and that conservative Brahmins at the time of Śabara — i.e., in the fifth or sixth century C. E. — still did not accept them. Indeed, Śabara's commentator Prabhākara still has no place for liberation in the seventh century C. E., whereas his other commentator Kumārila opens up to this idea at around the same time. All this fits in with the general picture according to which the belief in rebirth and liberation did not originate within Vedic Brahmanism. This belief originally belonged to others, and found its way into the Vedic Upaniṣads from outside, as is indeed confirmed by some Upaniṣadic passages. Vedic Brahmanism, far from being the source of these ideas, resisted them for some thousand years after their first appearance in the Upaniṣads. Seen in this way, the positions of Śabara and Prabhākara constitute additional evidence for the originally non-Vedic character of the belief in rebirth and liberation. This simple and elegant way of understanding the spread in time of the belief in rebirth and liberation in India is jeopardised by certain ideas about the early history of the Vedānta philosophy. It is well known that the Vedānta philosophy — which is to be distinguished from the Upaniṣads upon which it claims to be based — played no role in the philosophical debates of the early centuries of the common era. For centuries debates took place, and were recorded, between Sāṃkhyas, Naiyāyikas, Vaiśeṣikas and various schools of Buddhism, without any reference to the Vedānta philosophy. The first mention of this school of thought by others may well occur in the Madhyamakahṛdaya, a text belonging to the sixth century whose author was a Buddhist called Bhavya. This absence of evidence for Vedānta as a school of philosophy might be interpreted as evidence for its relatively late appearance. Frauwallner (1992: 173) represents a different point of view, which however is not very plausible: “In den folgenden Jahrhunderten (i.e., in the centuries following the composition of the Brahmasūtras, presumably already before the Common Era, JB) beschäftigte man sich damit, das System Bādarāyaṇas weiter auszugestalten und auszudeuten. Aber alles da liess sich mit den Leistungen der gleichzeitigen grossen philosophischen Schulen nicht vergleichen. Daher blieb das Vedānta-System zunächst unbeachtet und wurde auch in der Polemik dieser Schulen kaum einer Erwähnung wert gefunden.” In spite of this, a number of scholars are of the opinion that Vedānta as a system of philosophy was there right from the beginning, that is to say, right from the period immediately following the early Upaniṣads. The Vedānta philosophy, for which the name Uttaramīmāṃsā is sometimes used, was, according to these scholars, part of original Mīmāṃsā, which covered both Pūrva- and Uttara-Mīmāṃsā. Together they constituted at the beginning one single school of thought. Some extend this idea, and maintain that this single school of thought originally had one basic text, the Mīmāṃsāsūtra. This original text had two parts: the former or first part of the Mīmāṃsāsūtra, and the latter or second part of the Mīmāṃsāsūtra; in Sanskrit: Pūrva-Mīmāṃsāsūtra and Uttara-Mīmāṃsāsūtra. The later expressions Pūrvamīmāṃsā and Uttaramīmāṃsā can then be explained as having (erroneously) evolved from these book-titles. It is easy to see that the view according to which the Vedānta philosophy was in the beginning inseparably linked to Pūrvamīmāṃsā contradicts the idea that Pūrvamīmāṃsā for a long time was not interested in liberation and related concepts. The Vedānta philosophy, we must assume, has always been interested in liberation, through knowledge of Brahman. If the two schools of thought were originally one, we are virtually forced to conclude that the earliest ritualistic Mīmāṃsakas were also convinced Vedāntins. The abandonment by Pūrvamīmāṃsā of the ideal of liberation would then be a later development within the school, a development which soon, with Kumārila, yielded again to the lure of liberation. It will be clear that the idea of an original unity of Pūrvamīmāṃsā and Uttaramīmāṃsā raises serious questions. It is therefore justified to ask what evidence it is based on. Several arguments have been presented in the secondary literature. The present article will deal with them. §1. Were the Pūrva- and Uttaramīmāṃsā originally one system? Hermann Jacobi remarked in 1911 that “at Śabarasvāmin's time the Pūrva and Uttara Mīmāṃsā still formed one philosophical system, while after Kumārila and Śaṅkara they were practically two mutually exclusive philosophies”. Jacobi, 1911: 18 [576]. This remark, if true, has rather troubling consequences. It raises the general question what this single philosophical system at the time of, and before, Śabara may have looked like. More in particular, it raises the specific question why Śabara shows no awareness of the notion of liberation in his commentary on the ritual Mīmāṃsāsūtra, as observed by several scholars (Biardeau, 1964: 90 n. 1; Halbfass, 1980: 273 f.; 1991: 300 f.; Bronkhorst, 2000: 99 f.). Cp. Halbfass, 1991: 301: “the Mīmāṃsā carries the heritage of the ‘prekarmic’ past of the Indian tradition into an epoch for which karma and saṃsāra have become basic premises. As well as their counterpart, mokṣa, the concepts of karma and saṃsāra do not play any role in the Mīmāṃsāsūtra and remain negligible in its oldest extant commentary, Śabara's Bhāṣya.” Biardeau, 1968: 109: “[La Mīmāṃsā] n'accepte, au moins à date ancienne, ni l'idée des renaissances ni celle d'une délivrance.” Mesquita (1994) argues that both Jaimini and Śabara were concerned with liberation. For Jaimini he bases this opinion on the mention of the name Jaimini in the Brahmasūtra and in Śaṅkara's commentary thereon; this issue will be dealt with in § 6, below. Śabara's interest in liberation is presumably shown by his use of the expression niḥśreyasa in the Tarkapāda of his Bhāṣya (Frauwallner, 1968: 16 l. 12). This expression by itself refers to “something that has no better”, i.e. to the best there is, without specifying whether in Śabara's opinion heaven or liberation is the best there is. Elsewhere Śabara explains that heaven (svarga) is happiness (prīti) and that man makes efforts to attain happiness (see Bronkhorst, 2000: 104; Heesterman, 2003: 290 ff.); liberation is never mentioned. The conclusion is inevitable that for Śabara heaven is the best there is, and therefore that niḥśreyasa is svarga. Uttara Mīmāṃsā has, presumably from its beginning, always been about liberation through knowledge of Brahma. Is Śabara's silence in this regard to be explained by the presumed fact that he left this issue to the part of the single philosophical system that he adhered to but which he had no occasion to comment upon? Or does it simply show that he did not accept the notion of liberation, or even that he was not, or barely, aware of it? Jacobi's remark is cited with approval by Asko Parpola (1981: 155) in an article which tries to establish that not only were Pūrva and Uttara Mīmāṃsā originally one system, but that the fundamental texts of the two (the Pūrva-mīmāṃsāsūtra and the Uttara-mīmāṃsāsūtra respectively) were originally the initial and final parts of one single text, the original Mīmāṃsāsūtra. He supports this claim with the testimony of classical authors, to which he adds an argument based on the teacher quotations in the two texts. Reacting to Jacobi's remark, A. B. Keith already observed: “This, of course, would give the Pūrvamīmāṃsā a very different aspect, as merely a part of a philosophy, not the whole”. Keith himself considered Jacobi's remark dubious, and believed that syncretism of the systems would rather be due to the commentators. Keith, 1920: 473. It is indeed difficult to believe that the earliest Mīmāṃsakas, far from being the pure Vedic ritualistic thinkers that the texts present us with, were in their heart of hearts early Vedāntins, and that non-Vedāntic, ‘pure’ Mīmāṃsakas did not exist until later. At first sight this would appear to turn the historical development on its head. It would not, of course, disagree with certain Indian traditionalists, who see the history of Indian thought as one of ongoing decline. Yudhiṣṭhira Mīmāṃsaka (1987: Intr. p. 15-16), for example, speaks of the period of the teachers (ācārya-yuga) during which certain teachers, under the influence of Buddhists, Jainas and Cārvākas, started neglecting the earlier writings of Ṛṣis and Munis in order to press their own views. Y. Mīmāṃsaka mentions in particular Bhartṛhari, Śabarasvāmin and Śaṅkara in this connection, Śabarasvāmin's innovation being to deny the existence of Brahma. (etasminn eva kāle Bhartṛhariṇā Vākyapadīyaprabhṛtayo granthā viracayya śabdādvaitavādaḥ pravartitaḥ, Śabara-svāminā ca brahmaṇaḥ sattām apalapya Pūrvamīmāṃsāyā bhāṣyaṃ viracitam, Bhaṭṭakumārilena ca Śābarabhāṣye Vārtikagranthā vilikhitāḥ/ Śaṅkarācāryeṇa Bhartṛhareḥ śabdādvaitavādaṃ bauddhadārśanikamatāni cānurudhya tato vā preraṇāṃ labdhvā brahma satyaṃ jagan mithyā jīvo brahmaiva nāparaḥ iti matasya siddhyai vedāntadarśanasya bhāṣyaṃ viracitam). See also Subrahmanya Sastri, 1961: Bhūmikā p. 13 f. The improbability of such a development does not, of course, in itself constitute proof that it may not have taken place. It does however justify us to review the evidence with great care. Jacobi bases his opinion to the extent that “at Śabarasvāmin's time the Pūrva and Uttara Mīmāṃsā still formed one philosophical system” on the fact that Śabara is mentioned in an important passage in Śaṅkara's Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya on sūtra 3.3.53. The passage needs to be studied in its context. This context is primarily provided by the sūtra 3.3.53 (eka ātmanaḥ śarīre bhāvāt) which, in Śaṅkara's interpretation, establishes the existence of the self. In this context Śaṅkara states: BSūBhā on sūtra 3.3.53 (ed. J. L. Shastri p. 764 l. 9 - p. 765 l. 1); cp. Parpola, 1981: 153. nanu śāstrapramukha eva prathame pāde śāstraphalopabhogayogyasya dehavyatiriktasyātmano 'stitvam uktam/ satyam uktaṃ bhāṣyakṛtā/ na tu tatrātmāstitve sūtram asti/ iha tu svayam eva sūtrakṛtā tadastitvam ākṣepapuraḥsaraṃ pratiṣṭhāpitam/ ita eva cākṛṣyācāryeṇa śabarasvāminā pramāṇalakṣaṇe varṇitam/ ata eva ca bhagavatopavarṣeṇa prathame tantre ātmāstitvābhidhānaprasaktau śārīrake vakṣyāma ity uddhāraḥ kṛtaḥ/ [Objection:] Has the existence of a self that is different from the body and capable of enjoying the fruit of the Śāstra not [already] been stated at the very beginning of the Śāstra, in the first Pāda? [Answer:] That is true; it has been stated by the author of the Bhāṣya. But there (i.e., at the beginning of the Śāstra) there is no sūtra about the existence of a self. Here (i.e., in Brahmasūtra 3.3.53), on the other hand, the existence of the [self] has been established, after an initial objection, by the author of the Sūtra himself. And having taken it from here itself, Ācārya Śabarasvāmin has described [the existence of the self] in [the section] dealing with the means of valid cognition. Therefore also the revered Upavarṣa in the first Tantra, when he had to discuss the existence of the self, contented himself with saying: ‘We shall explain this in the Śārīraka’. The passage contains a number of puzzling expressions. It is particularly important to find out whether the expression "at the very beginning of the Śāstra, in the first Pāda" (śāstrapramukha eva prathame pāde) is to be taken as referring to the same thing as "in the first Tantra" (prathame tantre), or not. Since "the first Tantra" is explicitly contrasted with and therefore differentiated from "the Śārīraka" — the Śārīraka being no doubt Upavarṣa's planned (or executed) commentary on the Brahmasūtra —, it seems safe to conclude that "the first Tantra" is the Mīmāṃsāsūtra (or Upavarṣa's commentary on it). Cf. Kane, HistDh 5(2), p. 1160: “Śaṅkarācārya refers to the extant Pūrvamīmāṃsā as Dvādaśalakṣaṇī in his bhāṣya on Vedāntasūtra III.3.26, as ‘Prathamatantra’ in bhāṣya on V.S. III.3.25, III.3.53 and III.4.27, as Prathama-kāṇḍa in bhāṣya on V.S. III.3.1, III.3.33, III.3.44, III.3.50, as Pramāṇalakṣaṇa in bhāṣya on V.S. [2.1.1 and] III.4.42.” Similarly Kane, 1960: 120. Many interpreters (e.g. Deussen, 1887: 624; Thibaut, 1890/1896: II: 268; Gambhirananda, 1972: 740; Hiriyanna, 1925: 231; Kane, 1960: 120; Kane, HistDh 5(2), p. 1160; Parpola, 1981: 153; Ramachandrudu, 1989: 234-235; Bouy, 2000: 23 n. 92; Govindānanda and Ānandagiri on Brahmasūtra 3.3.53) identify “the very beginning of the Śāstra” with Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.1.5. But is this correct? Why should our short passage refer to one and the same discussion in three different ways: (i) “at the very beginning of the Śāstra, in the first Pāda”, (ii) “in [the section] dealing with the means of valid cognition” and (iii) “in the first Tantra”? We have to find out what Śaṅkara meant by "the beginning of the Śāstra". Related to this is the question whether Śaṅkara looked upon Mīmāṃsāsūtra and Brahmasūtra as together constituting one Śāstra, or as two different Śāstras. Jacobi and Parpola, as we have seen, invoke the passage under discussion to prove that the two together were originally one Śāstra, but their proof may be, at least in part, circular: The two disciplines were originally one because Śaṅkara refers to the Mīmāṃsāsūtra as "the beginning of the Śāstra", and "the beginning of the Śāstra" must refer to the Mīmāṃsāsūtra because the two disciplines were originally one. How do we get out of this circular argument? There is another passage in Śaṅkara's Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya which may throw light on his understanding of his own Śāstra. It occurs under sūtra 1.1.4 and reads: BSūBhā on sūtra 1.1.4 (ed. J.L. Shastri p. 98 l. 3-7). evaṃ ca sati “athāto brahmajijñāsā” iti tadviṣayaḥ pṛthakśāstrārambha upapadyate/ pratipattividhiparatve hi “athāto dharmajijñāsā” ity evārabdhatvān na pṛthakśāstram ārabhyeta/ ārabhyamāṇaṃ caivam ārabhyate: “athātaḥ pariśiṣṭadharmajijñāsā” iti, “athātaḥ kratvarthapuruṣārthayor jijñāsā” itivat/ brahmātmaikyāvagatis tv apratijñāteti tadartho yuktaḥ śāstrārambhaḥ “athāto brahmajijñāsā” iti/ Such being the case, it is proper to begin a separate Śāstra with the words “Then therefore the enquiry into Brahma” (Brahmasūtra 1.1.1) because it deals with that. For in case [this Śāstra] were to deal with injunctions that one has to know [Brahma], no separate Śāstra could be begun, because [the Śāstra of injunctions (viz. the Mīmāṃsāsūtra)] has already begun with the words “Then therefore the enquiry into Dharma” (Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.1.1). Something that has already begun would begin like this “Then therefore the enquiry into the remaining Dharma”, just like “Then therefore the enquiry into the purpose of the sacrifice and into the purpose of man” (which is a sūtra (4.1.1) that introduces a chapter of the Mīmāṃsāsūtra). But because knowledge of the identity of Brahma and ātman has not been stated (in the Mīmāṃsā), the beginning of a [new] Śāstra in the form “Then therefore the enquiry into Brahma” in order to convey that [knowledge] is appropriate. As the translation shows, this passage lends itself easily to an interpretation in which the Brahmasūtra belongs to a separate Śāstra (pṛthakśāstra), different from ritual Mīmāṃsā. There is more. According to Śaṅkara in his comments on Brahmasūtra 3.3.53 which we studied above, “the existence of a self that is different from the body and capable of enjoying the fruit of the Śāstra has [already] been stated at the very beginning of the Śāstra, in the first Pāda”. The very first Pāda of Śabara's Bhāṣya on the Mīmāṃsāsūtra does indeed contain a long passage dealing with the existence of the self (edited in Frauwallner, 1968: p. 50 l. 5 - p. 60 l. 23; translated pp. 51-61). This self is, as a matter of fact, stated to be different from the body, but the passage says nothing about its being “capable of enjoying the fruit of the Śāstra”. The first Pāda of Śaṅkara's Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya, on the other hand, repeatedly deals with these issues. As a short example we can take the following statement from Śaṅkara's comments on Brahmasūtra 1.1.4: BSūBhā on sūtra 1.1.4 (ed. J.L. Shastri p. 72 l. 1-3). “aśarīraṃ vāva santaṃ na priyāpriye spṛśataḥ” iti priyāpriyasparśanapratiṣedhāc codanālakṣaṇadharmakāryatvaṃ mokṣākhyasyāśarīratvasya pratiṣidhyata iti gamyate From the denial of being affected by joy and sorrow expressed in the statement “Joy and sorrow do not affect the one without body” (Chāndogya Upaniṣad 8.12.1) we understand that the state of being without body, called liberation, is denied to be the effect of Dharma characterised as injunction. The “one without body” is the self. The present passage tells us that this self, which is without body, is capable of enjoying the fruit of the Śāstra, viz. liberation. As an example of a short passage dealing with the existence of the self we can quote from Śaṅkara's comments on Brahmasūtra 1.1.1: BSūBhā on sūtra 1.1.1 (ed. J.L. Shastri p. 43 l. 1-2). sarvo hy ātmāstitvaṃ pratyeti, na nāham asmīti/ yadi hi nātmāstitvaprasiddhiḥ syāt sarvo loko nāham asmīti pratīyāt/ For everyone is conscious of the existence of (his) self, and never thinks ‘I am not’. If the existence of the self were not known, every one would think ‘I am not’. (tr. Thibaut, 1890/1896: I: 14) There are therefore good reasons to interpret the passage from Śaṅkara's Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya on sūtra 3.3.53 cited above in the following manner: [Objection:] Has the existence of a self that is different from the body and capable of enjoying the fruits of the Śāstra not [already] been stated at the very beginning of the [present] Śāstra, in the first Pāda [of the Brahmasūtra and its Bhāṣya]? [Answer:] That is true; it has been stated by the author of the [Brahmasūtra-]Bhāṣya (i.e., by Śaṅkara himself). The use of the third person to refer to one's own work finds a parallel, e.g., in Maṇḍana Miśra's Brahmasiddhi (e.g. p. 75 l. 4: vakṣyati; p. 23 l. 17: āha), and is particularly common where an author has himself composed a commentary on his own work. Compare in this context Medhātithi's remark under Manu 1.4 (I p. 7 l. 28-29): prāyeṇa granthakārāḥ svamataṃ parāpadeśena bruvate: ‘atrāha’ ‘atra pariharanti’ iti “it is a well known fact that in most cases the authors of Treatises state their own views as if emanating from other persons, making use of such expression as ‘in this connection he says’ or ‘they meet this argument thus’, and so forth” (tr. Jha, III p. 20, modified). Nowhere else in his Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya does Śaṅkara mention an ‘author of the Bhāṣya’ (bhāṣyakṛt; see Mahadevan, 1971&1973: II: 723). But there (i.e., at the beginning of the Brahmasūtra) there is no sūtra about the existence of a self. Here (i.e., in Brahmasūtra 3.3.53), on the other hand, the existence of the [self] has been established, after an initial objection, by the author of the Sūtra himself. And having taken it from here itself, Ācārya Śabarasvāmin has described [the existence of the self] in [the section of the Mīmāṃsā Bhāṣya] dealing with the means of valid cognition. Therefore also the revered Upavarṣa in the first Tantra (i.e. in his commentary on the Mīmāṃsāsūtra), when he had to discuss the existence of the self, contented himself with saying: ‘We shall explain this in the Śārīraka’. This way of understanding Śaṅkara's reference to the first Pāda agrees with the way in which he refers to the first, second and third Adhyāyas. Wherever in his Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya he refers to Adhyāyas, they are Adhyāyas of his Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya (or of the Brahmasūtra), numbered according to the position they have in his own work. Śaṅkara refers to the “first Adhyāya” at the very beginning of the second Adhyāya of his Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya; here there can be no doubt that it concerns the first Adhyāya of the Brahmasūtra (Bhāṣya), not of ritual Mīmāṃsā. Similarly, the “second Adhyāya” referred to at the very beginning of the third Adhyāya and under Brahmasūtra 2.1.1 clearly refers to Śaṅkara's own second chapter (or to that chapter of the Brahmasūtra). The same applies to the “third Adhyāya” referred to at the beginning of chapter four and under Brahmasūtra 3.1.1. The fact that Bhāskara on sūtra 1.1.1 (ed. Dvivedin p. 6 l. 19-20) uses "in the first Pāda" where Śaṅkara says "in the first Tantra" (ata evopavarṣācāryeṇoktaṃ prathamapāde ātmavādaṃ tu śārīrake vakṣyāma iti) suggests that he already misinterpreted Śaṅkara. Let us now turn to Śabara. The above passage shows that, in Śaṅkara's opinion, Śabara took a topic, or a passage, which belonged under Brahmasūtra 3.3.53 and placed it in his Mīmāṃsā Bhāṣya. The passage does not say what exactly he took, nor does it state that he took it from his own commentary on the Brahmasūtra. Śaṅkara testimony loses most of its value in the light of Erich Frauwallner's (1968) analysis of Śabara's Bhāṣya on Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.1.1-5. It is this portion of Śabara's Bhāṣya that contains a discussion of the self in a section dealing with the means of valid cognition, as noted by Śaṅkara. However, both the discussion of the self and the section on means of valid cognition in which it finds itself belong to the so-called Vṛttikāra-grantha. That is to say, they belong to a portion which Śabara's explicitly cites from another author, whom he calls the Vṛttikāra. No one, not even Śaṅkara, claims that the Vṛttikāra-grantha as a whole was taken from a commentary on Brahmasūtra 3.3.53; the fact that the Vṛttikāra-grantha comments several Mīmāṃsāsūtras excludes this as a possibility. Within the Vṛttikāra-grantha the section on the existence of the self is an insertion (Frauwallner, 1968: 109-110). This implies that if someone has taken this section from a commentary on Brahmasūtra 3.3.53, it was not Śabara, but the Vṛttikāra. It is therefore excluded that Śaṅkara still knew a commentary by Śabara on the Brahmasūtra which presumably contained the passage which is now part of the Vṛttikāra-grantha. Stated differently, it is open to question whether Śaṅkara knew more about Śabara than we do. This may not be all that surprising. Even Kumārila, who commented upon Śabara's Bhāṣya itself and is commonly regarded as having lived before Śaṅkara (Pande, 1994: 46-47), did no longer know the extent of the Vṛttikāra-grantha (Jacobi, 1911: 15 (573) f.). Yoshimizu's contribution to this volume shows that Kumārila subsequently changed his mind about the extent of the Vṛttikāra-grantha. Śaṅkara's incorrect attribution of the discussion of the self to Śabara is therefore understandable. His claim to know where this passage came from, on the other hand, is no more reliable than this incorrect attribution. Since Frauwallner's analysis may not be generally known, I cite here the most relevant passage (1968: 109-110): Der ganze Vṛttikāragranthaḥ ist, im grossen gesehen, folgendermassen aufgebaut. Nach der Besprechung der Erkenntnismittel ergreift ein Gegner das Wort und bringt eine Reihe von Gründen gegen die Glaubwürdigkeit des Veda vor. Die späteren Kommentatoren nennen diesen Abschnitt Citrākṣepavādaḥ, weil der Gegner von der vedischen Vorschrift “citrayā yajeta paśukāmaḥ” ausgeht. Die Antwort lautet zunächst im Anschluss an das Sūtram 5, dass der Veda glaubwürdig ist wegen der Naturgegebenheit der Verknüpfung von Wort und Gegenstand. Das wird weit ausholend besprochen: Wesen des Wortes, Gegenstand des Wortes, Wesen der Verknüpfung und ihre Naturgegebenheit. Dann wird nochmal auf die Angriffe des Gegners im Citrākṣepaḥ zurückgegriffen und sie werden der Reihe nach widerlegt. Damit ist die ganze Auseinandersetzung abgeschlossen. In die abschliessende Zurückweisung des Citrākṣepaḥ ist nun eine lange Erörterung über das Vorhandensein einer Seele eingefügt. Dass es sich dabei um einen sekundären Einschub handelt, zeigt schon das grobe Missverhältnis im Umfang dieses Einschubs gegenüber dem ganzen Abschnitt. Die ganze übrige Widerlegung des Citrākṣepaḥ umfasst nur 16 Zeilen, der Einschub 133 Zeilen. Ebenso krass ist die Äusserlichkeit der Einfügung. Auf diese lange Abschweifung folgt plötzlich ganz unvermittelt noch eine kurze Erwiderung auf einen der Einwände im Citrākṣepaḥ, so dass der Leser zunächst erstaunt fragt, wovon denn eigentlich die Rede ist. This analysis clearly shows that the portion on the soul is an insertion into the Vṛttikāragrantha, and not into Śabara's commentary. Śaṅkara obviously had it wrong. Regarding Śaṅkara's date, see Slaje's contribution to this volume, fn. 1 (just before 700 C.E.). Slaje (fn. 61) also gives a survey of opinions as to Śabara's date, which does not however take into consideration that Śabara was not yet known to Bhartṛhari (Bronkhorst, 1989), so that it is highly unlikely that Śabara lived before the fifth century C.E. There is less reason to be sceptical with regard to Śaṅkara's statement about Upavarṣa. There is no reason to doubt that Śaṅkara knew a commentary by Upavarṣa on the Mīmāṃsāsūtra in which its author stated: “We shall explain [the existence of the self] in the Śārīraka”. What does this prove? It seems plausible to conclude from this that Upavarṣa commented, or intended to comment, on both the Mīmāṃsāsūtra and the Brahmasūtra. Does this mean that he “seems to have treated the two sets of aphorisms as one connected work” (Nakamura, 1983: 398 n. 4, referring to Belvalkar)? This is far from certain. We know that another author, Maṇḍana Miśra, wrote treatises both on Mīmāṃsā and on Vedānta around the time of Śaṅkara, and yet it cannot be maintained that he treated the two sets of aphorisms as one connected work. Not much later Vācaspati Miśra commented upon works belonging to a variety of schools of thought. The fact, therefore, that Upavarṣa commented (or wanted to comment) upon the classical texts of two schools of thought does not, in and by itself, prove that he looked upon these as fundamentally the same, or upon their classical texts as really being parts of one single text. Indeed, the very circumstance that he speaks in this connection of “the Śārīraka” suggests that he did not look upon that work as simply a later part of the same commentary. And the fact that Śaṅkara speaks about Upavarṣa's ‘first Tantra’ without further specification while referring to his commentary on the Mīmāṃsāsūtra may simply suggest that Śaṅkara did not know Upavarṣa's commentary on the Brahmasūtra. The analysis of Śaṅkara's statements does not, therefore, provide us with reliable evidence that would allow to conclude that until Śaṅkara, and more particularly at the time of Upavarṣa and Śabara, the Mīmāṃsāsūtra and the Brahmasūtra were looked upon as parts of one single work. Even less do these statements prove that the two systems of thought that find expression in those texts were believed to be in reality just one system of thought. Only one classical Sanskrit author appears to have made a statement suggesting that the two Sūtra texts were originally part of one undivided text. This author is Sureśvara. Sureśvara is an early commentator, and apparently also a direct disciple, of Śaṅkara (EIP III p. 420 ff.; Hacker, 1951: 1918-19 (= (12)-(13); Ungemach, 1996). His Naiṣkarmyasiddhi contains a critique of Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.2.1 āmnāyasya kriyārthatvād ānarthakyam atadarthānāṃ ... “Since the Veda is for [ritual] activity, [passages] that are not for that are without purpose ...”. Sureśvara (p. 52; introducing verse 1.91; cp. Alston, 1959: 65-66; Maximilien, 1975: 43-44) states: yad api jaiminīyaṃ vacanam udghāṭayasi, tad api tadvivakṣāparijñānād evodbhāvyate/ kiṃ kāraṇam/ yato na jaiminer ayam abhiprāya āmnāyaḥ sarva eva kriyārtha iti/ yadi hy ayam abhiprāyo 'bhaviṣyat ‘athāto brahmajijñāsā/ janmādy asya yataḥ’ ity evamādi brahmavastusvarūpamātrayāthātmyaprakāśanaparaṃ gambhīranyāyasaṃdṛbdhaṃ sarvavedāntārthamīmāṃsanaṃ śrīmacchārīrakaṃ nāsūtrayiṣyat/ asūtrayac ca/ tasmāj jaiminer evāyam abhiprāyo yathaiva vidhivākyānāṃ svārthamātre prāmāṇyam evam aikātmyavākyānām apy anadhigatavastuparicchedasāmyād iti/ Also the words of Jaimini which you present, they too are based on an incorrect understanding of his intention. For Jaimini did not intend to say that the whole Veda is for [ritual] activity. Indeed, had this been his intention, he would not have composed the sūtras of the venerable Śārīraka, viz. athāto brahmajijñāsā, janmādy asya yataḥ (Brahmasūtra 1.1.1-2) etc., whose aim is to elucidate the real nature of the essence of Brahma and nothing else, and which is an investigation into the meaning of the Upaniṣads as a whole accompanied by profound reasoning. But he has composed those sūtras. Therefore Jaimini's intention is as follows: just as injunctive sentences are authoritative in their semantic space, in the same way too the sentences proclaiming the identity [of the self with Brahma], this because [both types of sentences] are equally limited to matters not known [from other sources]. It appears from this passage that Sureśvara believed that Jaimini the author of the Mīmāṃsāsūtra had also composed the Brahmasūtra. Kane (1960: 135 f.; HistDh 5(2), p. 1174 f.) concludes that Jaimini had composed a Śārīrakasūtra different from the present Brahmasūtra; similarly already Belvalkar, 1927. It is of course a small step from there to the position that both Sūtra texts had once been one single text. Sureśvara maintained this common authorship even in the face of Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.2.1, which he proposed to reinterpret in the light of Jaimini's “real” intentions. No independent scholar could possibly accept Sureśvara's argument as it is presented in this passage. Parpola draws attention to Keith's (1920: xx f.) scepticism as to the value of this attestation. Hiriyanna (1925: 230) observed, similarly: “It would not ... be right to conclude on the strength of this passage alone ... that Sureśvara regarded Jaimini as the author of the Vedānta-sūtras.” Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.2.1 constitutes, as a matter of fact, a major argument against the original unity of Pūrva- and Uttara-Mīmāṃsā. It is true that this sūtra — at any rate in Śabara's interpretation — presents a pūrvapakṣa, i.e., an opinion that will subsequently be discarded. But what is going to be discarded (from sūtra 1.2.7 onward) is not the position that the whole Veda is for ritual activity, but the conclusion that therefore passages that are not for ritual activity are for that reason without purpose. Sureśvara on the other hand claims that Jaimini did not intend to say that the whole Veda is for ritual activity, which is a position which seems difficult to defend, even though he was not the only Vedāntin to hold it. Sureśvara's reinterpretation of this sūtra — or more precisely: his rejection of the straightforward interpretation of this sūtra without offering something credible in its place Sureśvara repeats his position again in the immediately following sentence: “It is only the Vedic texts related to commands that bear on action” (adhicodanaṃ ya āmnāyas tasyaiva syāt kriyārthatā; tr. Alston, 1959: 67). — may therefore be understood to indicate that he attempted to impose a vision on the two Mīmāṃsās which does not easily fit the texts. It goes without saying that Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.2.1 constituted a challenge for many Vedāntins. Śaṅkara's Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya, for example, cites Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.2.1 in its introduction to Brahmasūtra 1.1.4, and subsequently enters in great detail to show that the Upaniṣadic statements about Brahma do not prescribe activity, and are not to be construed with other statements that do. In the end Śaṅkara does not reject Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.2.1, but he limits its range to such an extent that it cannot do much harm any longer: BSūBhā on sūtra 1.1.4 (ed. J. L. Shastri p. 94 l. 1-2); see further §3.1 below. tasmāt puruṣārthānupayogyupākhyānādibhūtārthavādaviṣayam ānarthakyābhidhānaṃ draṣṭavyam That is why the mention of purposelessness (in Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.2.1) is to be understood as concerning arthavādas in the form of stories and the like that do not serve a human purpose (puruṣārtha) Padmapāda — like Sureśvara probably a pupil of Śaṅkara (Hacker, 1951: 1929-30 (= (23)-(24); Ungemach, 1996) and therefore a contemporary of the former — disagrees with Sureśvara where the authorship of the Brahmasūtra is concerned. This was pointed out by van Buitenen (1956: 21 n. 57), who refers in this context to “Pañcapādika 40, 153-54” without indication what this means or what edition he has used; I presume that the passage cited here corresponds to the one intended by him. He does so in the following passage: Pañcapādikā of Padmapāda, ed. S. Śrīrāma Śāstrī and S.R. Krishnamurthi Śāstrī, p. 149-150. sa ca svarūpāvagamaḥ kasmin kathaṃ veti dharmamātravicāraṃ pratijñāya tatraiva prayatamānena bhagavatā jaimininā na mīmāṃsitam upayogābhāvāt, bhagavāṃs tu punar bādarāyaṇaḥ pṛthakvicāraṃ pratijñāya vyacīcarat samanvayalakṣaṇena. Venkataramiah (1948: 116) translates this as follows: And as to where or how the Vedic texts relating to the cognition of the existent entity (serve as a pramāṇa) is not explained by the revered Jaimini since in accordance with this resolve he set about investigating into the nature of Dharma only and since such knowledge (i.e., of ātman as distinguished from the body) is not to the purpose. But the revered Bādarāyaṇa on the other hand having resolved to inquire into a different topic altogether, has expounded (the subject of the separate existence of ātman) in the ‘samanvayādhikaraṇa’ — [Brahmasūtra] I.1.1-4. Padmapāda's disagreement with Sureśvara in this respect does not change the fact that he, too, has to limit the range of applicability of Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.2.1. He does so in the following passage: Padmapāda's Pañcapādikā, ed. S. Subrahmanyaśāstri, p. 344. nanu “dṛṣṭo hi tasyārthaḥ karmāvabodhanam”, “tadbhūtānāṃ kriyārthena samāmnāyaḥ”, “āmnāyasya kriyārthatvād” iti ca sarvasya kāryārthatvaṃ darśitam? satyam; tatprakramabalāt tanniṣṭho vedabhāga iti gamyate, na sarvatra/ [Objection:] It has been shown in [Śabara on Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.1.1 (Frauwallner, 1968: 12 l. 12-13):] dṛṣṭo hi tasyārthaḥ karmāvabodhanam, [and in Mīmāṃsāsūtras 1.1.15:] tadbhūtānāṃ kriyārthena samāmnāyaḥ ... [and 1.2.1] āmnāyasya kriyārthatvād ... that all [Vedic statements] have actions that are to be performed as purpose. [Reply:] True; because it begins with those [sūtras] (viz. athāto dharmajijñāsā MīmSū 1.1.1, and codanālakṣaṇo 'rtho dharmaḥ MīmSū 1.1.2), the portion of the Veda that is related to those [notions] (i.e., dharma and codanā) is understood. [These notions] do not pertain to the whole [of the Veda]. Sureśvara himself, in his Sambandhavārttika on Śaṅkara's Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣadbhāṣya, § 268-288. See esp. § 272-273: kriyāprakaraṇasthānāṃ vidhiśeṣātmanāṃ satām/ vacasām akriyārthānām ānarthakyāya tad vacaḥ// na tūpaniṣadāṃ nyāyyaṃ pārthagarthyasya saṃbhavāt/ pūrvoktenaiva nyāyena nātas tadvidhiśeṣatā//. points out that “in the Mīmāṃsāsūtra passage (1.2.1) ‘since scripture (āmnāya) has action as its subject’ the word ‘scripture’ refers only to the karmakāṇḍa, not to the Upaniṣads” (EIP III p. 428). Returning now to Sureśvara's remark about the authorship of the Brahmasūtra, the fact that his passage stands alone, is not confirmed by others and is indeed contradicted by statements from other authors (among them Padmapāda), does not add to its credibility. It is therefore all the more surprising that Parpola (1981: 150) cites this passage — without translation and without discussion — as supporting evidence for the hypothesis that “the founder of the Mīmāṃsā [is to] be credited with the authorship of a treatise upon the Vedānta, which the [present Brahmasūtra] would have replaced, not without thereby utilizing some of its elements”. Note that Parpola's conclusion goes well beyond Sureśvara's evidence. Sureśvara's remark, if correct, would show that Jaimini was the author of the Brahmasūtra, not — pace Kane, Belvalkar (see note 15) and Parpola — “of a treatise upon the Vedānta, which the [present Brahmasūtra] would have replaced, not without thereby utilizing some of its elements”. This artificial interpretation of Sureśvara's words by these modern scholars, including the postulated existence of an early Vedāntic work by Jaimini, finds its explanation in the fact that the extant Brahmasūtra is obviously a far more recent work than the ritual Mīmāṃsāsūtra and dates from a time many centuries after the late-Vedic period; its references to other systems of thought which did not yet exist in the late-Vedic period leave little doubt in this regard (see Jacobi, 1911: 13 [571] f.). However, it seems a lot more reasonable to take Sureśvara's remark at its face value and conclude that it is mistaken, rather than take it as a justification to postulate the existence of an earlier composition for which no independent evidence exists. Let us now consider some further passages that have a bearing on the relationship between ritual Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta. Rāmānuja introduces his Śrībhāṣya on the Brahmasūtra in the following manner (I p. 2): bhagavadbodhāyanakṛtāṃ vistīrṇāṃ brahmasūtravṛttiṃ pūrvācāryāḥ sañcikṣipuḥ, tanmatānusāreṇa sūtrākṣarāṇi vyākhyāsyante/ Earlier Ācāryas have condensed the extensive Brahmasūtra Vṛtti composed by the venerable Bodhāyana. The sounds of the sūtras will be explained in accordance with their/his opinions. It is not clear from this statement whether Rāmānuja still knew the long commentary of Bodhāyana or only the condensed versions prepared by the Ācāryas he mentions. Rāmānuja's Vedārthasaṃgraha (§93; van Buitenen, 1956: 128; Matsumoto, 2003: 39) refers to “old commentaries on [Veda and] Vedānta, accepted by recognised scholars, [and composed] by Bodhāyana, Ṭaṅka, Dramiḍa, Guhadeva, Kapardi(n), Bhāruci etc.” (bodhāyanaṭaṅkadramiḍaguhadevakapardibhāruciprabhṛtyavigītaśiṣṭaparigṛhītapurātanavedavedāntavyākhyāna-; some manuscripts omit °veda°). Rāmānuja's predecessor Yāmuna mentions as commentators on the Brahmasūtra Dramiḍa (some editions merely say bhāṣyakṛt) and Śrīvatsāṅkamiśra, and enumerates furthermore the following thinkers: Ṭaṅka, Bhartṛprapañca, Bhartṛmitra, Bhartṛhari, Brahmadatta, Śaṅkara, Śrīvatsāṅka and Bhāskara (Ātmasiddhi p. 9-10; cf. Neevel, 1977: 66 ff., 100; Mesquita, 1979: 165-166). A seventeenth century work in the tradition of Viśiṣṭādvaita, Śrīnivāsa's Yatipatimatadīpikā (= Yatīndramatadīpikā; p. 1), enumerates Vyāsa, Bodhāyana, Guhadeva, Bhāṇaruci, Brahmānandi(n), Draviḍācārya, Śrīparāṃkuśa, Nātha, Yāmunamuni, Yatīśvara etc. as the names of earlier teachers. For the twenty-one earlier commentators of the Brahmasūtra enumerated by Madhva, see Sharma, 1981: 98. Mesquita (1984: 179-180) surmises that he knew Bodhāyana's commentary in fragmentary form; this would explain that there are only seven quotations from this Vṛtti, all from the first Adhyāya, in the Śrībhāṣya. When, therefore, Rāmānuja cites a few pages later an unspecified Vṛttikāra, it is not fully clear whether the author cited is Bodhāyana (which seems probable), or someone else. The unspecified Vṛttikāra is cited in the following passage (I p. 4): Quoted Kane, 1960: 120 n. 2; HistDh 5(2), p. 1159 n. 1886; Parpola, 1981: 147 n. 7a. tad āha vṛttikāraḥ/ “vṛttāt karmādhigamād anantaraṃ brahmavividiṣā” iti/ vakṣyati ca karmabrahmamīmāṃsayor aikaśāstryaṃ: “saṃhitam etat śārīrakaṃ jaiminīyena ṣoḍaśalakṣaṇena iti śāstraikatvasiddhiḥ”/ The Vṛttikāra states this [in the following words]: “After the knowledge of karma which has been acquired, there is desire to know Brahma.” And he will state that Karmamīmāṃsā and Brahmamīmāṃsā are one Śāstra, in the words: “This Śārīraka has been joined with the sixteen-fold [composition] of Jaimini, The sixteenfold composition of Jaimini is no doubt the combination of the twelve chapters commented upon by Śabara with the four chapters known as Saṃkarṣakāṇḍa or Devatākāṇḍa; along with the four chapters of the Brahmasūtra this adds up to twenty chapters in total. It is noteworthy that the four chapters of the Devatākāṇḍa — which in the opinion of Rāmānuja's Vṛttikāra are part of the sixteenfold Karmamīmāṃsā — are united with the four chapters commented upon by Śaṅkara (i.e. with the Brahmasūtra) to account for an Uttaramīmāṃsā in eight chapters in the Sarva(darśana)siddhāntasaṃgraha ascribed to (another) Śaṅkara, as noted in Hacker, 1947: 55. According to the Tattvaratnākara the author of the Devatākāṇḍa is Kāśakṛtsna; see Subrahmanya Sastri, 1961: Preface p. (iii), Bhūmikā p. 5-6. and that proves that the two Śāstras are one.” Unlike Sureśvara, the Vṛttikāra cited by Rāmānuja does not appear to look upon the Brahmasūtra as a composition of Jaimini. His words rather create the impression that, according to him, the unity of the two Śāstras came about later, after the composition of their classical texts. Note further that these passages from Rāmānuja's Śrībhāṣya (unlike the Prapañcahṛdaya, to be considered below) do not state that either Bodhāyana or the Vṛttikāra (who may well have been one and the same person) commented upon both the Mīmāṃsāsūtra and the Brahmasūtra. Also the Prapañcahṛdaya, an anonymous work of unknown date, Witzel (1982: 212) characterizes the Prapañcahṛdaya as a “im frühen Mittelalter, vielleicht noch vor Śaṅkara entstandene Enzyklopädie”. He gives no evidence for this claim: a note merely states that this text is already acquainted with the medical author Vāhaṭa, so that it must date from after ca. 600 C.E. Witzel repeats this claim in a more recent publication (1985: 40: “wohl in die 2. Hälfte des 1. Jts. n. Chr. zu setzen”), adds however in a note (n. 19 p. 66): “Parpola, (cf. WZKS, 25, p. 153 ff.), datiert den Text ins 11. Jht.” See further note 96, below. creates the impression that the two Śāstras were combined at some moment of time after the composition of their classical texts (p. 26-27 (38-39), ch. 4; cited Parpola, 1981: 146 n. 4; Kane, HistDh 5(2), p. 1159 n. 1886): tatra sāṅgopāṅgasya vedasya pūrvottarakāṇḍasaṃbhinnasyāśeṣavākyārthavicāraparāyaṇaṃ mīmāṃsāśāstram/ tad idaṃ viṃśatyadhyāyanibaddham/ tatra ṣoḍaśādhyāyanibaddhaṃ pūrvamīmāṃsāśāstraṃ pūrvakāṇḍasya dharmavicāraparāyaṇaṃ jaiminikṛtam/ tadanyad adhyāyacatuṣkam uttaramīmāṃsāśāstram uttarakāṇḍasya brahmavicāraparāyaṇaṃ vyāsakṛtam/ The Mīmāṃsāśāstra reflects on the meanings of all sentences belonging to the Veda, Pūrvakāṇḍa and Uttarakāṇḍa combined, along with its Aṅgas and Upāṅgas. It has been composed in twenty chapters. Among these, the Pūrvamīmāṃsāśāstra composed in sixteen chapters, See note 25, above. by Jaimini, reflects upon the Dharma connected with the Pūrvakāṇḍa. Different from that is the Uttaramīmāṃsāśāstra, four chapters composed by Vyāsa, Note that also Govindānanda's Bhāṣyaratnaprabhā on BrSBh 1.1.4 (p. 98) ascribes the Brahmasūtra to Vyāsa: uktarītyā brahmaṇaḥ svātantrye saty eva bhagavato vyāsasya pṛthak śāstrakṛtir yuktā ...; similarly Sāyaṇa in the introduction to his Ṛgveda Bhāṣya (e.g., p. 10 l. 12), Vācaspati in the fifth introductory verse of his Bhāmatī, Kullūka Bhaṭṭa on Manu 1.8 and 21. Kauṇḍa Bhaṭṭa in his Vaiyākaraṇabhūṣaṇa on verses 23 and 24 ascribes both the Brahmasūtra and the Yogabhāṣya to Vyāsa. Cf. further Kane, 1960: 129 ff.; HistDh 5(2), p. 1166. Vyāsa is also mentioned at Upadeśasāhasrī Padyabandha 16.67, but the editor and translator of this passage believes that “[i]n Śaṅkara's works Vyāsa indicates the author of the Smṛtis and not Bādarāyaṇa, the author of the B[rahma] S[ūtra]” (Mayeda, 1979: 159 n. 41; cp. 1965: 187; 1973: 40-41). Yāmuna bases an argument on the presumed identity of Vyāsa the author of the Mahābhārata and Vyāsa the author of the Brahmasūtra; see Neevel, 1977: 56. Madhusūdana Sarasvatī's Vedāntakalpalatikā sometimes mentions Vyāsa (p. 2 verse 4), sometimes Bādarāyaṇa (p. 12), apparently referring to one and the same person. The fact that the Prapañcahṛdaya elsewhere (p. 46 (67)) identifies Bādarāyaṇa and Vyāsa has not received sufficient attention in the secondary literature. which reflects upon Brahma of the Uttarakāṇḍa. This same text adds that Bodhāyana and Upavarṣa commented upon the combined work (p. 27 (39); cited Kane, HistDh 5(2), p. 1159 n. 1886; Parpola, 1981: 154 n. 37; Mīmāṃsaka, 1987: Intr. p. 27): tasya viṃśatyadhyāyanibaddhasya mīmāṃsāśāstrasya kṛtakoṭināmadheyaṃ bhāṣyaṃ bodhāyanena kṛtam/ tad granthabāhulyabhayād upekṣya kiṃcit saṃkṣiptam upavarṣeṇa kṛtam/ tad api mandamatīn prati duṣpratipādaṃ vistīrṇatvād ity upekṣya ṣoḍaśalakṣaṇapūrvamīmāṃsāśāstrasya devasvāminātisaṃkṣiptaṃ kṛtam/ bhavadāsenāpi kṛtaṃ jaiminīyabhāṣyam/ punar dvikāṇḍe dharmamīmāṃsāśāstre pūrvasya tantrakāṇḍasyācāryaśabarasvāminātisaṃkṣepeṇa saṃkarṣakāṇḍaṃ dvitīyam upekṣya kṛtaṃ bhāṣyam/ The passage continues (cited Mīmāṃsaka, 1987: Intr. p. 27): tathā ca devatākāṇḍasya saṃkarṣeṇa/ brahmakāṇḍasya bhagavatpādabrahmadattabhāskarādibhir matabhedenāpi kṛtam/ tathā śābarabhāṣyaṃ vākyārthabhedam abhyupagamya bhaṭṭaprabhākarābhyāṃ dvidhā vyākhyātam: tatra bhāvanāparatvena bhaṭṭakumāreṇa, niyogaparatayā prabhākareṇa. Bodhāyana wrote a commentary, called Kṛtakoṭi, on the [entire] Mīmāṃsāśāstra composed in twenty chapters. Because the great bulk of [that] work was frightening, Upavarṣa abridged it by omitting some things. Considering even that to be difficult to understand for the dull-witted on account of its extent, Devasvāmin wrote a much abridged [commentary] pertaining only to the Pūrvamīmāṃsāśāstra defined by the [first] 16 [chapters]. Bhavadāsa, too, wrote a commentary upon [this] work of Jaimini's. Again, Ācārya Śabarasvāmin wrote, with much abbreviation, a commentary upon the first of the two kāṇḍas of the Dharmamīmāṃsāśāstra, Tantrakāṇḍa, omitting the second Saṅkarṣakāṇḍa. (tr. Parpola, 1981: 153-154; modified) It is hard to determine with certainty the extent to which the accounts of the Prapañcahṛdaya are trustworthy. Yudhiṣṭhira Mīmāṃsaka (1987: Intr. p. 29-30) has pointed out that according to various early testimonies Kṛtakoṭi, far from being the name of a commentary, is another name for Upavarṣa. He further draws attention to the fact that the Prapañcahṛdaya, while mentioning Brahmadatta and Bhāskara as commentators on the Brahmasūtra, See the preceding note. does not mention Śaṅkara. This is surprising in view of the fact that the author of the Prapañcahṛdaya may have been an Advaitin, as might follow from the following statement (p. 17 (23)): nirupādhikas tanubhuvanaprapañcapratibhāsarahito nityaśuddhabuddhamuktaparamānandādvaitabrahmabhāvo mokṣaḥ; see also his characterisation of the fourth chapter of the Brahmasūtra (p. 29 (42)): caturthe sakalasaṃsāraduḥkhānāṃ nivṛttilakṣaṇam ātmādvaitabrahmamātramokṣaphalam. It is on the other hand surprising that the last two chapters of the Prapañcahṛdaya (prakaraṇas 7 and 8) extensively deal with Sāṃkhya and Yoga. It is here to be noted (i) that Śaṅkara may have thought that Śabara had also composed a commentary on the Brahmasūtra, as we have seen above, and (ii) that Śabara refers twice (on PMS 10.4.32; 12.2.11) to the Saṅkarṣakāṇḍa in his Mīmāṃsābhāṣya, without clear indication to the effect that he himself had composed a commentary on it. Christian Bouy (2000: 24 n. 96), moreover, reminds us that according to Vedāntadeśika, Bodhāyana and Upavarṣa appear to be one and the same person. Cf. Mesquita, 1984: 181-82 n. 9. However that may be, the Prapañcahṛdaya does not tell us that Pūrva- and Uttara-Mīmāṃsā were originally one system. It rather suggests that at some point in time efforts were made to combine the two fundamental texts — the Mīmāṃsāsūtra and the Brahmasūtra — in order to create one single system. Bodhāyana and Upavarṣa (whether one or two persons) may have played a role in this attempt. Judging by later developments, this attempt did not meet with lasting success. Devasvāmin and other commentators returned to a separate treatment of the Mīmāṃsāsūtra, the commentators mentioned by Rāmānuja and others apparently confined themselves to the Brahmasūtra. We must conclude from the evidence so far considered that the testimony from later authors does not support the hypothesis that the Pūrva- and the Uttara-Mīmāṃsā originally were one system, even less that the Pūrva- and Uttara-Mīmāṃsāsūtra were originally part of one single work. The following sections will bring to light that all the available evidence agrees as well — in fact, better — with an altogether different hypothesis, the hypothesis namely that at least some Vedāntins at some point of the history of this current of thought made a effort to turn themselves into, or become recognised as, some kind of Mīmāṃsakas, different from the ritual Mīmāṃsakas, but Mīmāṃsakas none the less, this because these Vedāntins, too, followed the same strict rules of Vedic interpretation as the ritual Mīmāṃsakas. §2. Vedāntins who are not Mīmāṃsakas The question we have to address at this point is the following: why should a philosophy that draws its inspiration from the Upaniṣads consider itself a form of Mīmāṃsā? This would at first sight only make sense if Mīmāṃsā were some kind of philosophy. The fact is that it isn't. Ritual Mīmāṃsā, at any rate, never was a philosophy until later thinkers of the school — primarily Kumārila Bhaṭṭa and Prabhākara — adopted philosophical positions in their confrontations with thinkers of other schools. Until that time ritual Mīmāṃsā was a school of Vedic hermeneutics. The whole of Śabara's Bhāṣya contains very little that one might be tempted to call ‘philosophy’ and all the more that is Vedic interpretation. In other words, a philosophy that shares features with the teachings of the Upaniṣads and which draws its inspiration from these texts is not automatically a form of Mīmāṃsā. Let us not forget that ritual Mīmāṃsā is not a school of ritual practice that invokes the Veda in order to justify its practices. The texts present the situation the other way round. Mīmāṃsā describes the manner in which an openminded student reacts to the teachings of the Veda. That is to say, a properly qualified student learns the Veda by heart and also comes to understand its meaning. He is in this way confronted with injunctions, which tell him that he must carry out certain ritual acts. Realising that these injunctions cannot but be correct, he now knows that he has to sacrifice and does so. Combining these injunctions with other injunctions and with different Vedic statements, our student finds out how exactly to perform these sacrifices. If in this way he is going to perform the same sacrifices which his elders had performed before him, this is not, strictly speaking, because he imitates his elders, but because he, individually, has been confronted with the same Vedic injunctions as had his elders before him. If we apply this way of thinking to Vedānta as Mīmāṃsā — for which the passages cited in §1 above use various names: Śārīraka-, Vedāntārtha-, Brahma- and Uttara-Mīmāṃsā —, we find that this cannot be merely a philosophy which justifies its tenets by invoking the Veda. In order to be a form of Mīmāṃsā, the situation has to be reversed here too. Any qualified person is free to invoke passages from the Veda to support this or that position, and later thinkers maintain that all the Smṛtis are in fact based on the Veda. This does not however turn these Smṛtis into Mīmāṃsā. In order to be a form of Mīmāṃsā, Vedānta thought must claim to directly derive from the Veda. In fact, the expression “Vedānta thought” or “Vedānta philosophy” is dubious in this connection; it is no doubt more correct to speak of the “Vedāntic transformation” that is claimed to affect the qualified student who correctly studies the Veda. At this point it is important to recall that Vedāntic Mīmāṃsā, in order to be a form of Mīmāṃsā, has to describe the reaction of the learner to the whole of the Veda, not exclusively the Upaniṣads. Since no Vedāntic Mīmāṃsaka, to my knowledge, has ever rejected ritual Mīmāṃsā for being totally mistaken, Vedāntic Mīmāṃsā presents itself as a superstructure on top of ritual Mīmāṃsā. This does not necessarily entail that every Mīmāṃsaka must also be, or have been, a ritualist (even though many Vedāntic Mīmāṃsakas adopted this position). It means that they fully recognise that many Vedic statements require those who study them to perform sacrifices; the knowledge obtained from Upaniṣadic statements may annul these injunctions for certain adepts (this is the opinion of several Vedāntic Mīmāṃsakas, among them Śaṅkara), but this does not change the fact that those Vedic injunctions in and by themselves require such behaviour. In other words, Vedāntic Mīmāṃsā in a certain way recognises ritual Mīmāṃsā. However, to come back to the point of departure, one may very well adhere to Vedāntic ideas without having a Mīmāṃsā-like conception as to how a student of the Veda supposedly will undergo the effects of the relevant Upaniṣadic statements. This is a very important point: there is no reason whatsoever to believe that all Vedāntins were Mīmāṃsakas, even Vedāntic Mīmāṃsakas. There is no theoretical reason to think so, and there are practical indications that there were indeed Vedāntins who recognised no link with Mīmāṃsā. In the present section we will briefly consider testimony that shows that there apparently were, during the centuries preceding Śaṅkara, Vedāntins who did not consider themselves Mīmāṃsakas. These early Vedāntins held on to a position in which knowledge of Brahma was the precondition for liberation, they apparently believed that this position was the one also taught in the Upaniṣads (sometimes only their name would betray this), but they did not waste a word on what exact role the Veda played in obtaining this liberating knowledge. In other words, these Vedāntins were not, or at any rate did not present themselves as Mīmāṃsakas. The first text here to be considered is the so-called Gauḍapādīyakārikā or Āgamaśāstra ascribed to Gauḍapāda, in whom later tradition sees the teacher of the teacher of Śaṅkara. Mahadevan, 1952: 2; but Hacker, 1951: 1922 (16). It must here briefly be recalled that this ascription of the Āgamaśāstra to a single author is highly problematic. This text really consists of four treatises (prakaraṇa), already in the opinion of the Śaṅkara who commented upon all four of them, and about whose identity there is difference of opinion. See Mayeda, 1968; Vetter, 1969a; 1978; Bronkhorst, 1991; King, 1995; Stephan, 2002: 29 ff.; Hanneder, 2003. The second of these four treatises (known by the name Vaitathyaprakaraṇa) refers at two occasions to the Upaniṣads (GK 2.12: vedāntaviniścaya; GK 2.31: vedānteṣu vicakṣaṇa) but contains no hint how, or indeed that, its doctrine is derived from the Upaniṣads. Its central message, that the objects of our waking consciousness are no more real than the objects seen in a dream, is presented as ‘handed down by tradition’ (smṛta) in verse 2.4, rather than as ‘known from the Veda’ (śruta), which would metrically have been possible. The third treatise (Advaitaprakaraṇa) frequently mentions Brahma, but its point is not that Brahma can only be known through the Veda. The emphasis is on mental states without thought, sometimes called samādhi (3.37), sometimes asparśayoga ‘contactless Yoga’: “This is what is called ‘contactless Yoga’, very difficult to be looked at by all yogins; for the yogins shrink from it seeing fear where [in fact] there is no fear.” GK 3.39: asparśayogo nāmaiṣa (Bouy, 2000: 73, 181 reads vai nāma) durdarśaḥ sarvayogibhiḥ/ yogino bibhyati hy asmād abhaye bhayadarśinaḥ//. Tr. Bhattacharya, modified. Cp. Divanji, 1940; King, 1992; Slaje, 1994a. A further message of this treatise is that nothing can come into existence. This position is argued for in a series of verses (GK 3.20-28) with the help of both Upaniṣadic references and logic (cp. Bronkhorst, 1999: 53 f.). The third treatise does also elsewhere refer to Upaniṣadic passages (e.g. GK 3.11: taittirīyake; 3.12: madhujñāne; etc.) but, like the second treatise, it does not suggest that the knowledge it communicates, or the aim it preaches, can only be obtained from the Upaniṣads by applying the principles of Mīmāṃsā. Some of the themes of the third treatise (asparśayoga; and the idea that nothing can come into existence) recur in the fourth one (Alātaśāntiprakaraṇa), with this difference that the fourth treatise heavily uses Buddhist ideas and terminology, so much so that the position can be, and has been, defended that this treatise was composed by a Buddhist. It is therefore open to question whether it was conceived as an expression of Vedāntic thought, and no trace of concern with the text of the Upaniṣads can, of course, be found in it. The first treatise, finally, is often considered as commenting upon an Upaniṣad, the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad. However, the commentator Śaṅkara does not look upon this text as an Upaniṣad, as śruti, and nor does the famous Śaṅkara who composed the Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya ever cite this Upaniṣad (Mayeda, 1968: 81; Vetter, 1979: 34-35). With regard to Śaṅkara, Mayeda (1968: 82) observes: “It is strange but true that the commentator of the Gauḍapādīyakārikā keeps totally silent about the Māṇḍūkyopaniṣad, even while commenting on its twelve prose sentences. Of course he has to cite to interpret it, but he does so as if it were a part of the Gauḍapādīyakārikā.” It is to be noted that a number of later authors refer to both the Māṇḍūkya and the Gauḍapādīya Kārikā as śruti, and therefore as part of the Veda (Mayeda, 1968: 81 f.; Bouy, 2000: 33). Note further that “Śaṃkara cite ..., dans son com[mentaire] sur les Brahmasūtra, [Gauḍapādīya Kārikā] III.15 et I.16, en les attribuant respectivement au saṃpradāyavid et au ‘maître’ (ācārya) vedāntārthasaṃpradāyavid ([Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya] 1.4,14; II.1,9)” (Bouy, 2000: 33 n. 154). The first treatise itself contains no indication that its teaching is based on an Upaniṣad, nor on several Upaniṣads or on the Veda for that matter. Its emphasis is on the syllable OM, which is identical with Brahma, and knowledge of which leads to the highest goal: “He and no other person is a sage (muni) who knows OM which has no measure and yet has an unlimited measure, and which is the cessation of duality, and which is bliss.” GK 1.29: amātro 'nantamātraś ca dvaitasyopaśamaḥ śivaḥ/ oṅkāro vidito yena sa munir netaro janaḥ//. Tr. Bhattacharya. Another early Vedānta treatise — the Paramārthasāra of Ādiśeṣa, which appears to be younger than the Āgamaśāstra and older than the Yuktidīpikā Nothing stands in the way of dating the Yuktidīpikā in the second half of the sixth century C.E.; see Bronkhorst, 2003. (Danielson, 1980: 1-2) — is an even clearer example of Vedāntic thought in which the link with the Veda receives no attention whatsoever. Indeed, the word Vedānta itself occurs only in its concluding verse, in the compound vedāntaśāstra. Nothing else in the eighty-seven verses that make up this small treatise as much as suggests that the message it communicates has anything whatsoever to do with the Upaniṣads. On the other hand, Brahma is frequently mentioned, and it is made clear that knowledge of Brahma leads to liberation. The Buddhist author Bhavya provides us with further early testimony regarding what he calls the Vedāntavādins. Earlier authors maintained that Bhavya quotes a verse from Gauḍapāda in his work and is therefore posterior to him, but this seems less certain now; cf. Bouy, 2000: 20 f. His testimony creates the impression that the school of philosophy that he describes was not much concerned with the details of Vedic interpretation that is characteristic of Mīmāṃsā. Theirs was a school of philosophy, whose link with the Upaniṣads receives no attention whatsoever in Bhavya's exposition. What is more, we learn from Qvarnström's (1989: 102 f.) study of the material that Bhavya believed that the Vedāntavādins had adopted or stolen their ideas from the Buddhists. Bhavya claims: Madhyamakahṛdayakārikā 8.86: tāthāgatīm avitathāṃ matvā nītim imāṃ śubhām/ tasmāj jātaspṛhais tīrthyaiḥ kṛtaṃ tatra mamāpi tat//. Text and translation as in Qvarnström, 1989: 44, 91. “Being convinced that this infallible system of the Tathāgata is a good one, here [in the Vedānta system] the heterodox sectarians, being desirous of [that doctrine], have therefore [even] made it their own.” This accusation, too, suggests that Bhavya was confronted with people or texts whose prime concern was not to derive their philosophy from Vedic texts. Also the Jaina tradition has preserved a small text — dating perhaps from the sixth century and attributed to Siddhasena Divākara — which presents a Vedāntic position. This text draws upon Upaniṣadic and other Vedic sources, without however subjecting them to anything like a Mīmāṃsā-like analysis. Qvarnström, 2003. As a further example of Vedānta-like philosophising without excessive concern for Vedic hermeneutics the fifth-century thinker Bhartṛhari may be mentioned. His Vākyapadīya appears to refer to Vedāntins once (trayyantavedinaḥ; Vkp 3.3.72), but there is no reason to think that Bhartṛhari counted himself amongst them (cp. Houben, 1995: 293 f.; Bronkhorst, forthcoming). And yet Bhartṛhari's thought resembles classical Vedāntic philosophy in many respects. Brahma is mentioned in the very first verse of the Vākyapadīya, and a few more times later on. Brahma is Bhartṛhari's absolute, which is one, the totality of all there is. Cf. Bronkhorst, 1991a; 1998. The parallelism with the early Sāṃkhya notion of pradhāna is striking; see Bronkhorst, 2007. This totality is divided into unreal entities under the influence of the powers of Brahma. This is not, to be sure, identical in all details with the philosophy of Śaṅkara, or Gauḍapāda. Indeed, a major difference is that Bhartṛhari never identifies the self with Brahma. Yet Bhartṛhari's respect for the Veda is beyond doubt, and the resemblance of some of his notions with the ideas normally associated with Vedāntic thought is clear. But Bhartṛhari does not present his views as the mere result of correct Vedic interpretation. One more text must be mentioned here. The recent researches of Walter Slaje (esp. 1994) have made it probable that the original kernel out of which the Yogavāsiṣṭha developed was an independent work called Mokṣopāya, a work whose author and precise date remain unknown. Regarding the date of the original Mokṣopāya Slaje makes the following observation (1994: 56): "Mit seinem erkenntnistheoretischen Illusionismus und seiner Lehre vom nicht wirklich Entstandensein der Erscheinungswelt (ajātatva) könnte das Werk — historisch betrachtet — eine Nebenlinie zu Gauḍapāda (um 500), dem Laṅkāvatārasūtra, und Maṇḍana (um 700) bilden." The attitude toward authority of the author of the original Mokṣopāya finds expression in the following words: YogV 2.18.2-3: api pauruṣam, ādeyam śāstraṃ ced yuktibodhakam/ anyat tv, ārṣam api, tyājyam; bhāvyaṃ nyāyaikasevinā// yuktiyuktam upādeyaṃ vacanaṃ bālakād api/ anyat tṛṇam iva tyājyam, apy uktaṃ padmajanmanā//. Cp. Slaje, 1994: 167. "Even when it has been composed by a human being, a treatise must be accepted if it teaches on the basis of arguments (yukti). [Everything] else, on the other hand, should be abandoned, even if it derives from seers (ṛṣi). One should exclusively adhere to rules of logic (nyāya). Statements supported by arguments (yukti) must be accepted even from a child. [Everything] else should be abandoned like [useless] grass, even if it has been uttered by [the god] Brahmā." And again: YogV 7.103.45: śāstrakartari rantavyaṃ na kadācana kutracit/ śāstrārtha eva rantavyaṃ yuktiyuktānubhūtide//. The reading is the one adopted by Slaje (1994: 165) on the basis of supplementary manuscript-evidence. Where possible, I use the readings accepted by Slaje in his book Vom Mokṣopāya-Śāstra zum Yogavāsiṣṭha-Mahārāmāyaṇa (1994), or in his editions of Bhāskarakaṇṭha's Mokṣopāyaṭīkā (1993, 1995, 1996). I also follow Slaje in referring to the Uttarārdha of book 6 as book 7. "Never and in no case should one be satisfied with the author of a treatise; one should be satisfied with the contents of the treatise, [on condition that] it provides experience supported by arguments (yukti)." These and many other passages allow us to conclude that the author of the Mokṣopāya was of the opinion that his philosophical position was not based on traditional authority, but supported by arguments presented in his text. This does not necessarily mean that he claimed to have created an altogether new philosophy, but he certainly was of the opinion that someone who was sufficiently informed about the world and who seriously considered the arguments concerned, would arrive at the same philosophy as he, quite independently of the tradition he might belong to. Which is this philosophical position? The author of the Mokṣopāya teaches a subjective illusionism, which denies the existence of a real, objectively existing world. E.g. YogV 6.95.16 (Slaje, 1994: 260 n. 230): jagadādi na vidyate. The world is nothing beyond imagination; even the creator-god Brahmā is no more real than the model in the mind of a painter. YogV 3.2.55: yathā citrakṛdantaḥsthā nirdehā bhāti putrikā/ tathaiva bhāsate brahmā cidākāśāccharañjanam// (Slaje, 1994: 198) All that exists is consciousness. This is not the place to deal with the arguments which the Mokṣopāya presents to prove its view of the world (see Bronkhorst, 2001: 207 ff.). It is however important to note that its philosophy is in various respects close to Vedānta. Cf. Chenet, 1998, 1999. Yet this text explicitly denies dependence on anything but logical reasoning. The texts considered so far can be looked upon as being more or less closely associated with one or more Vedāntic traditions that remained unconnected with Mīmāṃsā. There are of course numerous other texts which preach Vedānta-like ideas without being in any way linked to Mīmāṃsā. Cp. Gonda, 1985: 82: “D'une manière générale, à travers toute l'histoire de l'hindouisme, on peut distinguer les penseurs plutôt philosophes et les fidèles sentimentaux. Les premiers ont tendance à croire à l'existence du seul Brahman et à son identité avec les âmes empiriques et la matière; ils estiment que la rédemption consiste en ceci que, par une vision directe, on fait l'expérience de l'unité éternelle du brahman et de l'âme ... Quant aux croyants plus ou moins bhaktiques, ils insistent, avec la Bhagavadgītā, sur le fait que le Brahman est l'Ātman et le maître des êtres vivants, ...” Cf. Sheridan, 1986. It serves no purpose in the present context to try to be exhaustive. However, mention must be made of the relatively late Upaniṣads that were composed during the period that interests us. These texts propound Vedāntic ideas (such as “I am Brahma”) without basing themselves on the old Upaniṣads; they do not need to, because they present themselves as Upaniṣads. And yet these texts are younger than the early Upaniṣads, many much younger, some younger than Śaṅkara himself. It may here suffice to mention the so-called Saṃnyāsa Upaniṣads, which have been studied in detail by scholars such as Sprockhoff (1976) and Olivelle (1992). The dates of these texts range from the last centuries preceding the common era to the fifteenth century C. E., according to Sprockhoff (1976). It is not impossible that some of these Upaniṣads have at a late date been “vedanticised” (Sprockhoff, 1976: 263), but this can hardly be true of all the Upaniṣads that have been composed during this period. Obviously the Vedāntic ideas of these and other Upaniṣads cannot be looked upon as some kind of Mīmāṃsā, because these texts claim to be parts of the Veda themselves. Perhaps this claim was never meant to be taken too seriously — after all, these Upaniṣads were not part of the repertoire of traditional Veda reciters — but this would show all the more clearly that the Vedānta philosophy, in the opinion of many, could very well survive and thrive without a close link to the Veda of the traditional reciters. Relatively early evidence for Vedānta-like ideas is also found elsewhere. Aśvaghoṣa's Buddhacarita, for example, contains the following verse, put in the mouth of the future Buddha's teacher Arāḍa Kālāma (12.42): “For this purpose the Brahmans in the world, who follow the doctrine of the supreme Absolute (paramabrahma), practise here the brahman-course and instruct the Brahmans in it.” (ityarthaṃ brāhmaṇā loke paramabrahmavādinaḥ/ brahmacaryaṃ carantīha brāhmaṇān vāsayanti ca//). Johnston, 1936: 133 (text); 174 (translation). Cp. Nakamura, 1955: 83 f.; 1983: 146 f. [The question of the relation of certain Vedāntic traditions with Mīmāṃsā presents itself emphatically in connection with the school of Rāmānuja. Gerhard Oberhammer (1997: 97) makes the following pertinent remarks: In der Darstellung der Geschichte der Rāmānuja-Schule werden ihre Anfänge üblicherweise durch die Namen Nāthamuni, Yāmunamuni und Rāmānuja charakterisiert, auch wenn einige verlorene Autoren dem Namen nach bekannt sind und erwähnt werden. Dadurch ergibt sich ein im Grunde eindimensionales Bild der Anfänge dieser Schule, das letztlich auch ihre historische Verflechtung in das philosophisch-theologische Geschehen der Zeit im Dunkeln lässt. Woher stammt die philosophische Tradition dieser Denker, von denen jedenfalls Yāmunamuni ein Pāñcarātrin gewesen sein dürfte, und wie war ihre Beziehung zur Vedānta-Tradition? Denn selbst bei der üblichen Darstellung der Geschichte der Schule fällt auf, dass im Grunde Rāmānuja der erste Autor ist, der einen Kommentar zu den Brahmasūtren schreibt. Weder Nāthamuni noch Yāmunamuni haben einen solchen verfasst. Yāmunamuni kennt zwar die Brahmasūtren und zitiert sie. Er kennt sogar eine grosse Zahl von Kommentatoren der Brahmasūtren, man tut sich aber schwer vor Rāmānuja von einer echten Vedānta-Tradition der Schule im engeren Sinne zu sprechen. Es fällt selbst schwer, genau zu bestimmen, woher Rāmānujas eigene Vedānta-Tradition kommt. Es ist bezeichnend, dass Rāmānuja, wenigstens der Legende nach, Schüler eines Vedānta-Lehrers gewesen ist, nämlich Yādavaprakāśas, der mit seiner Lehre nicht dem Typus des Viśiṣṭādvaita angehört hat, wie er etwa bei Yāmunamuni fassbar ist. Die Anfänge der Vedānta-Tradition Rāmānujas bleiben im Dunkel und können beim heutigen Stand der Forschung auch nicht geklärt werden. In view of the questions raised in this article, one may wonder to what extent Rāmānuja's predecessors can be looked upon as Vedāntic Mīmāṃsakas. Cp. Oberhammer, 1971: 6. Roque Mesquita's researches (1990: 19), for example, have led to the conclusion that Nāthamuni was of the opinion that God's existence had to be proved, not only on the basis of the Veda, but also with the help of inference. Yāmunamuni defended initially (e.g., in his Ātmasiddhi and Īśvarasiddhi) the same position, but abandoned the idea of a logical proof of the existence of God in his later works (Puruṣanirṇaya, Āgamaprāmāṇya; see Mesquita, 1971; 1973: 187 f.; 1974: 188 f.; 1980: 203 f.). Vedānta as Mīmāṃsā — as has been pointed out above and will further be shown below — allows no other means of obtaining liberating knowledge of Brahma, or of God, than the Veda. Vedāntic Mīmāṃsā has no place for logical proofs of God, for it would no longer be a form of Mīmāṃsā.] §3. Vedāntins who are Mīmāṃsakas Beside those Vedāntins who do not show much concern with the details of Vedic hermeneutics, there are others who do. We will see that a number of Vedāntins did not just use the principles of Mīmāṃsā in order to arrive at a correct interpretation of the Upaniṣads which they could then use to prove their philosophies right. They went further by presenting their philosophies as being themselves Mīmāṃsā at heart. A correct use of the principles of Mīmāṃsā, they argued, leads the qualified student to liberation through the knowledge of Brahma. These philosophers do not therefore present themselves, strictly speaking, as philosophers, a fact that has often been overlooked in modern research. See however Mayeda, 1968a: 221: “Early Vedānta philosophers did not pay much attention to the epistemological and logical problems which were important, even essential, topics among other schools of Indian philosophy.” Modern research has therefore frequently dealt with questions such as that of the relationship between human reason and Vedic revelation in these thinkers. This question is explicitly thematised in works such as Murty, 1959; Brückner, 1979; Halbfass, 1991: ch. 5 (“Human reason and Vedic revelation in Advaita Vedānta”; an earlier version of this chapter in Halbfass, 1983: ch. 2). Krishna (2001: 94) protests, no doubt rightly, against the use of the term ‘revelation’ in this context. To the extent that these thinkers present themselves as Mīmāṃsakas (and we will see that they do not always stick to this position in all their writings), there can be no doubt that knowledge derived from the Veda must have priority over any form of reasoning. Being self-proclaimed Mīmāṃsakas they maintain, and have to maintain, that the Veda provides knowledge that cannot be obtained by any other means. Vedānta conceived of as Mīmāṃsā is not a form of philosophy which uses various means of knowledge to establish its positions; quite the contrary, it is Vedic interpretation which starts from the assumption that knowledge correctly derived from the Veda cannot but be correct itself. One is tempted to conclude from Vātsyāyana's laconic characterisation in the Nyāya Bhāṣya of the Upaniṣads as being “mere knowledge of the self” (adhyātmavidyāmātra) and distinct from “investigative science” (ānvīkṣikī) that he was acquainted with some form of early Vedāntic Mīmāṃsā; see NBh p. 35 l. 3-4 (on sūtra 1.1.1). Let me hasten to add that the knowledge about Brahma that can be obtained from the Veda and from nowhere else is not just any kind of knowledge; for the student who is ripe for it, it is knowledge which liberates him from this world. We have seen that by far not all Vedāntins have presented themselves as Mīmāṃsakas, and it seems a priori likely that Vedānta as Mīmāṃsā was an innovation that was at some time made in certain Vedāntic circles. We may assume that the author or authors of the Brahmasūtra as well as the various commentators of this text only whose names have reached us belonged to those who welcomed this way of presenting Vedānta. It is not clear to what extent all Vedāntins in the tradition of Brahmasūtra commentators considered themselves Mīmāṃsakas. Sureśvara's use, in his Naiṣkarmyasiddhi 2.24, of the simple term mīmāṃsaka to designate a follower of Kumārila Bhaṭṭa is suggestive in this respect; cp. Hacker, 1951: 1954 (48). There is however no doubt in the case of the most important ones: Śaṅkara calls his own work Vedāntavākyamīmāṃsā under BSū 1.1.1 (and Śārīrakamīmāṃsābhāṣya in the colophons); Bhāskara's commentary is called Śārīrakamīmāṃsābhāṣya in a number of colophons; attention has been drawn in §1 to Rāmānuja's use of the expression Brahmamīmāṃsā. In the following pages we will consider some of the thinkers of this kind whose works have survived. The earliest commentator on the Brahmasūtra whose work has been preserved is Śaṅkara. Let us examine his position in some detail. §3.1. Śaṅkara In the beginning of his Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya, Śaṅkara presents a justification of the way he interprets the Upaniṣads. Since this way would at first sight seem to be in contradiction with the Mīmāṃsā methods of Vedic interpretation, he first presents the latter's point of view as a pūrvapakṣa: BSūBhā introducing sūtra 1.1.4 (ed. J. L. Shastri p. 58 l. 6 - p. 61 l. 4). kathaṃ punar brahmaṇaḥ śāstrapramāṇakatvam ucyate, yāvatā "āmnāyasya kriyārthatvād ānarthakyam atadarthānām" iti kriyāparatvaṃ śāstrasya pradarśitam/ ato vedāntānām ānarthakyaṃ, akriyārthatvāt/ kartṛdevatādiprakāśanārthatvena vā kriyāvidhiśeṣatvaṃ, upāsanādikriyāntaravidhānārthatvaṃ vā/ na hi pariniṣṭhitavastupratipādanaṃ saṃbhavati, pratyakṣādiviṣayatvāt pariniṣṭhitavastunaḥ, tatpratipādane ca heyopādeyarahite puruṣārthābhāvāt/ ata eva "so 'rodīt" ity evamādīnām ānarthakyaṃ mā bhūd iti "vidhinā tv ekavākyatvāt stutyarthena vidhīnāṃ syuḥ" iti stāvakatvenārthavattvam uktam/ mantrāṇāṃ ca "iṣe tvā" ityādīnāṃ kriyātatsādhanābhidhāyakatvena karmasamavāyitvam uktam/ ato na kvacid api vedavākyānāṃ vidhisaṃsparśam antareṇārthavattā dṛṣṭopapannā vā/ na ca pariniṣṭhite vastusvarūpe vidhiḥ saṃbhavati, kriyāviṣayatvād vidheḥ/ tasmāt karmāpekṣitakartṛdevatādisvarūpaprakāśanena kriyāvidhiśeṣatvaṃ vedāntānām/ atha prakaraṇāntarabhayān naitad abhyupagamyate, tathāpi svavākyagatopāsanādikarmaparatvam/ tasmān na brahmaṇaḥ śāstrayonitvam How [can] it be stated that the Veda (śāstra) is the means of knowing Brahma, in view of the fact that it has been shown — (in Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.2.1 which reads:) ‘Since the Veda is for [ritual] activity, [passages] that are not for that are without purpose’ — that the Veda concerns [ritual] activity? The Upaniṣads are therefore without purpose, since they are not for [ritual] activity. Alternatively, they are adjuncts to injunctions [that prescribe ritual] activities in order to make known their agent, deity, etc.; or they are meant to enjoin other activities such as adoration. For it is not possible that they provide information about an existing thing, because an existing thing is the object of [other means of knowledge] such as perception, and because no human purpose (puruṣārtha) is served in providing information about [an existing thing], by which nothing is to be gained or lost. It is for this reason that, in order to avoid that [Vedic statements] like ‘He wept’ be without purpose, [such statements] are stated to serve a purpose in that they eulogise [an injunction], in (Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.2.7:) ‘Because they form one sentence with an injunction, they [serve a purpose] by eulogising injunctions’. Mantras such as iṣe tvā (TaitS 1.1.1) have been stated to be connected with ritual acts as being expressive of [ritual] activity and the means thereto. For this reason Vedic sentences are nowhere seen to have purpose except in connection with injunctions, nor would this be possible. Nor is an injunction possible that pertains to the existing aspect of a thing, because an injunction concerns an activity. It follows that the Upaniṣads are adjuncts of injunctions [that prescribe ritual] activities by making known the own forms of the agent, deity etc. required by the ritual act. And if this is not accepted out of concern for the different contexts [of Upaniṣads and Vedic injunctions], they [must be accepted as] concerning adoration and other things mentioned in their own sentences. It follows that Brahma is not known from the Veda. This passage admirably presents, and in few words, what we know is the position of classical Mīmāṃsā. In this position there is no place for information in the Veda about existing things. The Veda, not having been composed by fallible beings, cannot possibly contain incorrect information, and therefore no information that could be in conflict with other means of knowledge such as perception. For this reason it cannot contain information about what the world is like. However, it can and does contain information about what human beings must do, for this information cannot be obtained in any other way. The result is that injunctions have to be taken literally, whereas all other Vedic pronouncements may have to be understood metaphorically. Śaṅkara does not agree with this. He claims that the principles of Mīmāṃsā do not exclude that information about Brahma can be obtained from the Vedic texts. His logic is simple. He agrees with Mīmāṃsā that the Veda can on no account be in conflict with other means of knowledge and that, therefore, the Veda can only provide information about things that we cannot gain information about in any other way. For Mīmāṃsā the only things that fulfill this requirement are the injunctions. Śaṅkara argues that Brahma, too, falls in the same category: the only way to obtain knowledge about Brahma is through the Veda. It is to be emphasised that Śaṅkara does not express disagreement with the basic principles of Mīmāṃsā. On the contrary, he agrees with all of them. This idea is still present in the much more recent Śaṅkara legends. According to these, Maṇḍana Miśra was a Mīmāṃsaka who lost a debate with Śaṅkara. However, “[i]n ihm regte sich Zweifel, denn etwas konnte er nicht verstehen: Wie konnte der grosse Weise Jaimini, der selbst ein Schüler Vyāsas war, eine Lehrmeinung vertreten, die offensichtlich falsch und nicht im Einklang mit den heiligen Schriften war? Auch Śaṅkaras grossartige Erklärungen konnten Maṇḍanamiśras Zweifel nicht ausräumen. Um letzte Gewissheit zu erlangen, richtete Maṇḍanamiśra seine Gedanken auf Jaimini, der daraufhin erschien und ihn davon überzeugte, dass Śaṅkaras Advaita-Lehre nicht die Gültigkeit der ritualistischen Mīmāṃsā-Lehre ausschliesse, sondern diese in sich begreife” (Ungemach, 1996: 301). He only maintains that in applying these principles the traditional Mīmāṃsakas overlook something. They are, to be sure, right in thinking that the Veda should never be in conflict with other means of knowledge. They are also correct in maintaining that the injunctions, by their very nature, cannot be in conflict with any other means of knowledge and must therefore be taken literally. He only adds that the same reasoning applies to the passages that provide information about Brahma, for Brahma, too, cannot be known by any other means of knowledge. The central role of the śruti constitutes what Michael Comans calls the “method of early Advaita Vedānta” (2000: esp. p. 467 ff.). Śaṅkara sets out his arguments in a long passage, of which the following parts are most important in the present context: BSūBhā on sūtra 1.1.4 (ed. J. L. Shastri p. 63 l. 4 - p. 65 l. 2). See further Rambachan, 1997. na ca pariniṣṭhitavastusvarūpatve 'pi pratyakṣādiviṣayatvaṃ brahmaṇaḥ, “tat tvam asi” iti brahmātmabhāvasya śāstram antareṇānavagamyamānatvāt/ .../ yady apy anyatra vedavākyānāṃ vidhisaṃsparśam antareṇa pramāṇatvaṃ na dṛṣṭaṃ, tathāpy ātmavijñānasya phalaparyantatvān na tadviṣayasya śāstrasya prāmāṇyaṃ śakyaṃ pratyākhyātum/ And Brahma, even though by its nature an existing thing, is not the object of perception etc., because the identity of Brahma and the self known from ‘That's who you are’ (ChānUp 6.8.7) [can] not be known without the Veda. ... Although elsewhere Vedic sentences are not seen to be authoritative without being connected with injunctions, the authority of Vedic texts that concern [knowledge of the self] cannot be rejected, because knowledge of the self leads to a result. Put differently, traditional Mīmāṃsā is completely correct but for the fact that its very principles should oblige it to include among the statements that will have to be taken literally, beside injunctions, also Upaniṣadic sentences pertaining to Brahma. Śaṅkara, far from being a critic of Mīmāṃsā, presents himself here as an even more conscientious applier of Mīmāṃsā principles than the traditional Mīmāṃsakas themselves. Elsewhere in his Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya Śaṅkara emphasises again that Brahma cannot be known by any other means than only the Veda: BSūBhā on sūtra 2.1.6 (ed. J. L. Shastri p. 360 l. 6-8). yat tūktaṃ pariniṣpannatvād brahmaṇi pramāṇāntarāṇi saṃbhaveyur iti tad api manorathamātram/ rūpādyabhāvād dhi nāyam arthaḥ pratyakṣasya gocaraḥ/ liṅgādyabhāvāc ca nānumānādīnām/ āgamamātrasamadhigamya eva tv ayam artho dharmavat/ As to what has been claimed, namely that other means of knowledge may be possible with respect to Brahma because the latter is a completed thing, [the answer is:] That, too, is wishful thinking. For this object (viz., Brahma), not possessing colour etc., [can] not be the object of perception; nor of inference and so on, because there is no inferential mark. This object can rather only be known through the Veda (āgama), just like Dharma (which can only be known through Vedic injunctions). Śaṅkara's acceptance of Mīmāṃsā principles does not mean that he always reaches the same conclusions as the ritual Mīmāṃsakas. Statements about Brahma have to be accepted for reasons which the traditional Mīmāṃsaka should find convincing. But Śaṅkara goes further. Information contained in arthavādas (i.e., statements like “He wept”, cited by Śaṅkara's Mīmāṃsā opponent) and in mantras, if it is not in conflict with other sources of knowledge, will have to be accepted, too. In this way we learn that the gods have bodies etc., a position that had been rejected by Śabara. Śaṅkara explains this in his commentary on Brahmasūtra 1.3.33: BSūBhā on sūtra 1.3.33 (ed. J. L. Shastri p. 269 l. 12 - p. 272 l. 2). yad apy uktaṃ mantrārthavādayor anyārthatvān na devatāvigrahādiprakāśanasāmarthyam iti/ atra brūmaḥ: pratyayāpratyayau hi sadbhāvāsadbhāvayoḥ kāraṇaṃ, nānyārthatvam ananyārthatvaṃ vā/ tathā hy anyārtham api prasthitaḥ pathi patitaṃ tṛṇaparṇādy astīty eva pratipadyate/ atrāha: viṣama upanyāsaḥ/ tatra hi tṛṇaparṇādiviṣayaṃ pratyakṣaṃ pravṛttam asti yena tadastitvaṃ pratipadyate/ atra punar vidhyuddeśaikavākyabhāvena stutyarthe 'rthavāde na pārthagarthyena vṛttāntaviṣayā pravṛttiḥ śakyādhyavasātum/ na hi mahāvākye 'rthapratyāyake 'vāntaravākyasya pṛthak pratyāyakatvam asti/ yathā ‘na surāṃ pibet’ iti nañvati vākye padatrayasaṃbandhāt surāpānapratiṣedha evaiko 'rtho 'vagamyate/ na punaḥ surāṃ pibed iti padadvayasaṃbandhāt surāpānavidhir apīti/ atrocyate: viṣama upanyāsaḥ/ yuktaṃ yat surāpānapratiṣedhe padānvayasyaikatvād avāntaravākyārthasyāgrahaṇam/ vidhyuddeśārthavādayos tv arthavādasthāni padāni pṛthag anvayaṃ vṛttāntaviṣayaṃ pratipadyānantaraṃ kaimarthyavaśena kāmaṃ vidheḥ stāvakatvaṃ pratipadyante/ .../ tad yatra so 'vāntaravākyārthaḥ pramāṇāntaragocaro bhavati tatra tadanuvādenārthavādaḥ pravartate/ yatra pramāṇāntaraviruddhas tatra guṇavādena/ yatra tu tad ubhayaṃ nāsti tatra kiṃ pramāṇāntarābhāvād guṇavādaḥ syād āhosvit pramāṇāntarāvirodhād vidyamānavāda iti pratītiśaraṇair vidyamānavāda āśrayaṇīyaḥ na guṇavādaḥ/ etena mantro vyākhyātaḥ/ With regard to what has been said — viz., that neither a mantra nor an arthavāda is capable of revealing the body and other [features] of divinities, this because [mantra and arthavāda] have another purpose — we answer: Cognition and absence of cognition, not the fact of having or not having another purpose, are the cause for [accepting] the existence and non-existence [respectively of something]. For example, a man, though traveling for another purpose, knows that the grass, leaves and other things that have fallen on his path are there. At this point [the opponent] objects: The comparison is not appropriate. For in that [comparison] perception with grass, leaves and other things as objects has taken place, with the help of which [the traveler] knows that these [objects] are there. In the present case, on the other hand, since the arthavāda has praise [of some sacrificial injunction] as purpose by being united into one sentence with that injunction, it is not possible to determine that it has, by having a different purpose [as well], an event as object. For a sentence that is included in a larger sentence that expresses a meaning, does not separately express [another meaning]. For example, in the negative sentence “One should not drink alcoholic beverages” (na surāṃ pibet), because of the connection between the three constituent words, only one meaning, viz. the prohibition of drinking alcoholic beverages, is understood; but not also the injunction to drink alcoholic beverages on account of the connection between the two words surāṃ pibet “One should drink alcoholic beverages”. Here the following reply is given: The comparison is not appropriate. It is correct that in the prohibition of alcoholic beverages the meaning of the included sentence (surāṃ pibet) is not understood because there is only one syntactical connection between the words. However, in the case of an injunction and its accompanying arthavāda, the words of the arthavāda, having [first and] separately reached syntactic agreement with an event as object, they subsequently, under the influence of the question ‘what for?’, do indeed praise the injunction. ... Therefore, where the meaning of an included sentence belongs to the realm of another means of valid cognition (and is corroborated by it), there the arthavāda plays its role in accordance with that [other means of valid cognition]. Where [the meaning of the included sentence] is contradicted by another means of valid cognition, [there the arthavāda plays its role] through secondary communication. But where neither of the two is the case, there those who rely upon cognition must accept that [the arthavāda] communicates something existing, on the basis of the following reflection: “Should it be secondary communication on account of the fact that there is no other means of valid cognition (with regard to its contents), or a communication of something existing because it is not in contradiction with another means of valid cognition?”. In this same way the mantra has been explained. It is striking that here, once again, Śaṅkara turns the methods of Mīmāṃsā against itself. He does not deny that arthavādas are to be understood with injunctions. He merely adds, on the basis of a semantic analysis, that this does not do away with their literal contents, which have to be accepted if no other means of valid cognition militates against this. Śaṅkara applies essentially the same method to distinguish between statements about Brahma that are literally true and such that are not. He clearly distinguishes between these two in his commentary on Brahmasūtra 4.3.14: BSūBhā on sūtra 4.3.14 (ed. J. L. Shastri p. 884 l. 5 - p. 885 l. 5). Tr. Gambhirananda, 1972: 885-86, modified; cp. Comans, 2000: 223. jagadutpattisthitipralayahetutvaśruter anekaśaktitvaṃ brahmaṇa iti cet/ na/ viśeṣanirākaraṇaśrutīnām ananyārthatvāt/ utpattyādiśrutīnām api samānam ananyārthatvam J. L. Shastri's edition has incorrect anyārthatvam. iti cet/ na/ tāsām ekatvapratipādanaparatvāt/ mṛdādidṛṣṭāntair hi sato brahmaṇa ekasya satyatvaṃ vikārasya cānṛtatvaṃ pratipādayac chāstraṃ notpattyādiparaṃ bhavitum arhati/ kasmāt punar utpattyādiśrutīnāṃ viśeṣanirākaraṇaśrutiśeṣatvaṃ na punar itaraśeṣatvam itarāsām iti/ ucyata: viśeṣanirākaraṇaśrutīnāṃ nirākāṅkṣārthatvāt/ na hy ātmana ekatvanityatvaśuddhatvādyavagatau satyāṃ bhūyaḥ kācid ākāṅkṣopajāyate puruṣārthasamāptibuddhyupapatteḥ .../ ... na viśeṣanirākaraṇaśrutīnām anyaśeṣatvam avagantuṃ śakyate/ naivam utpattyādiśrutīnāṃ nirākāṅkṣārthapratipādanasāmarthyam asti/ pratyakṣaṃ tu tāsām anyārthatvaṃ samanugamyate/ ... evam utpattyādiśrutīnām aikātmyāvagamaparatvān nānekaśaktiyogo brahmaṇaḥ/ Opponent: Brahma can have different powers since the Upaniṣads show It to be the cause of the origin, continuance, and dissolution of the universe. Vedāntin: Not so, since the Upaniṣadic texts denying distinctive attributes cannot be interpreted in any other way. Opponent: In the same way the texts about origin etc. cannot be interpreted otherwise. Vedāntin: Not so, for their purpose is to establish unity. The text that propounds the reality of Brahma, existing alone without a second, and that proves the unreality of all modifications with the help of illustrations like clay, cannot be meant for establishing the truth of origin etc. Opponent: Why again should the texts about origin etc. be subservient to the texts denying distinction and not the other way round? Vedāntin: The answer is that this is so because the texts denying distinction lead to a knowledge which is complete by itself (and leaves behind no more curiosity to be satisfied). For when one has realized that the Self is one, eternal, pure, and so on, one cannot have any more curiosity to be satisfied as a result of the rise in him of the conviction that the highest human goal has been reached ... [T]he texts denying distinctions cannot be understood to be subservient to others. But the texts about origin etc. cannot give rise to any such self-contained knowledge (that allays further curiosity). As a matter of fact, they are seen to aim at something else. ... Thus since the texts about creation etc. are meant for imparting the knowledge of oneness, Brahma cannot be possessed of many powers. [There is one important domain in which Śaṅkara does not always follow the example of classical Mīmāṃsā as we find it in Śabara's Bhāṣya. The latter's exegetical efforts follow the fundamental principle that an interpretation that is “nearer”, i.e. presents itself more directly, is to be preferred to one that is more “remote”. See Bronkhorst, 1997. Śaṅkara, following the Brahmasūtra, sometimes deviates from this principle. Under Brahmasūtra 1.1.22 he admits that in connection with the word ākāśa the meaning bhūtākāśa ‘the element ether’ presents itself immediately to the mind (śīghraṃ buddhim ārohati); yet he rejects this sense in favour of another one: Brahma. The principle of “proximity” as a yard-stick for comparing interpretations is yet behind the important Mīmāṃsāsūtra (3.3.14), known to Śaṅkara, Renou, 1957: 125 / 473 / 411 sq. which enumerates a number of criteria of interpretation in order of decreasing importance (and justifies this with the word arthaviprakarṣāt “because the meaning obtained with their help is more remote”). MīmSū 3.3.14: śruti-liṅga-vākya-prakaraṇa-sthāna-samākhyānāṃ samavāye pradaulbalyam arthaviprakarṣāt.] If then Śaṅkara makes an effort to present the Vedāntic way to liberation as a form of Mīmāṃsā, does this have any effect on the precise nature of this path? Here it is to be remembered that Mīmāṃsā — i.e., first of all ritual Mīmāṃsā — takes as point of departure the hypothetical situation of a man with an open mind and without prior expectations who is being confronted with the contents of the Veda, presumably during the process of learning it by heart. Coming across an injunction this man will know that he must execute this or that activity, he will interpret other Vedic sentences along with injunctions, etc. etc. The whole of Mīmāṃsā in its sometimes confusing complexity is presented as resulting naturally from this confrontation, in which the learner must however preserve his unbiased openness to the text. In the end this learner will carry out rituals and do all the other things that are required, not (according to the theory) because someone told or taught him to do so, but simply because this is the natural reaction to a confrontation with the texts he has learnt. This same hypothetical situation applies to Brahma-Mīmāṃsā. Imagine the same man as before now learning the Upaniṣads by heart. He will come across, and by hypothesis understand, sentences that teach him e.g. that his self is identical with Brahma. Śaṅkara makes a point of arguing that these sentences are no injunctions, so that there is no prescription to meditate on Brahma or the like. That is to say, these sentences do nothing beyond passing some information. But important information it is! It is the kind of information that informs a person that the snake which had given him a fright is really a rope. Such information does not prescribe anything, yet totally changes the situation of those who receive it. Our Vedic student will all of a sudden know that his self is Brahma and therefore be liberated. By hypothesis he does not have to do anything to attain this state; indeed, there is nothing he can do. Liberation in this way is the result of an unbiased confrontation with the relevant parts of the Veda, and of nothing else. It is important to realise that Śaṅkara's determination to present Vedānta as Mīmāṃsā inevitably leads him to the position that liberation is the result of the mere confrontation with the relevant Upaniṣadic statements. This is not the same as stating that Śaṅkara felt obliged to present it in this way “by the conventions of the literary genre he has chosen”, as Taber (1983: 7) maintains. Also other Vedāntins, most notably Śaṅkara's disciple Sureśvara, attribute the same importance to the Upaniṣadic statements; see Hacker, 1951: 2001 (95) f. He does indeed emphasise in various places that only knowledge is required to attain that goal, which may be attained either from the mere hearing of Upaniṣadic sentences or from contemplation on them. However, John A. Taber (1983: 13 ff.) has plausibly argued, citing a variety of passages, that Śaṅkara's position must have been somewhat more complex. On several occasions Śaṅkara states quite clearly that works can purify a person so that he can then know the self. A clear example is Śaṅkara's Bhāṣya on Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.4.22: Śaṅkara: Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad Bhāṣya p. 300. Cp. Taber, 1983: 17. kathaṃ punar nityasvādhyāyādibhiḥ karmabhir ātmānaṃ vividiṣanti? naiva hi tāny ātmānaṃ prakāśayanti yathopaniṣadaḥ/ naiṣa doṣaḥ/ karmaṇāṃ viśuddhihetutvāt/ karmabhiḥ saṃskṛtā hi viśuddhātmānaḥ śaknuvanty ātmānam upaniṣatprakāśitam apratibandhena veditum/ But how do [Brahmins] desire to know the self by means of works such as the obligatory recitation of the Veda? For those [works] do not illuminate the self, as do the Upaniṣads. Nothing wrong here, because [these] works are the cause of purification. For those who have been purified by works, whose selves are pure, are able to know the self revealed by the Upaniṣads without obstruction. The Bhāṣya on Taittirīya Upaniṣad 1.11 is equally clear: Śaṅkara: Taittirīyopaniṣad Bhāṣya p. 352-53. Tr. Taber, 1983: 20; cp. Hulin, 2001: 162 ff. virodhād eva ca vidyā mokṣaṃ prati na karmāṇy apekṣate/ svātmalābhe tu pūrvopacitaduritapratibandhāpanayadvāreṇa vidyāhetutvaṃ pratipadyante karmāṇi nityānīti/ .../ evaṃ cāvirodhaḥ karmavidhiśrutīnām/ ataḥ kevalāyā eva vidyāyāḥ paraṃ śreya iti siddham/ It is precisely because of this conflict [between karma and knowledge] that knowledge does not depend on karma as far as mokṣa is concerned. With respect to its own attainment, however, we have said that obligatory karma becomes the cause of knowledge insofar as it removes previously accumulated hindrances. ... Thus there is no contradiction of those scriptural passages that enjoin karma. Hence, that the highest good is a consequence of knowledge alone is proved. Taber concludes (p. 23) that there is “little doubt that Śaṅkara conceives of religious practice as an important aid in achieving mokṣa, even if it is not, strictly speaking, its cause”. The beginning of the Upadeśasāhasrī (prose) confirms that liberating knowledge will not be the share of those who do not fulfill a number of demanding preconditions: Śaṅkara: Upadeśasāhasrī, Gadyabandha 1.2 (Mayeda, 1973: 191); tr. Taber, 1983: 24. tad idaṃ mokṣasādhanaṃ jñānaṃ sādhanasādhyād anityāt sarvasmād viraktāya tyaktaputravittalokaiṣaṇāya pratipannaparamahaṃsapārivrājyāya śamadamadayādiyuktāya śāstraprasiddhaśiṣyaguṇasampannāya śucaye brāhmaṇāya vidhivad upasannāya śiṣyāya jātikarmavṛttavidyābhijanaiḥ parīkṣitāya brūyāt punaḥ punar yāvad grahaṇaṃ dṛḍhībhavati. The [direct] means to liberation, that is, knowledge, should be imparted again and again until it is firmly grasped — to a Brahmin disciple who is pure, indifferent to everything that is transitory and achievable through worldly means, who has given up the desire for a son, for wealth, and for this world and the next, who has adopted the life of a wandering monk and is endowed with control over his mind and senses as well as with the other qualities of a disciple well known in the scriptures, and who has approached the teacher in the prescribed manner and has been examined with respect to his caste, profession, conduct, learning, and parentage. Śaṅkara's Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya enumerates, under the very first sūtra, the following preconditions for an aspiring student: (1) an ability to distinguish between the temporal and the eternal; (2) dispassion for the enjoyment of the fruits of one's actions both here and hereafter; (3) attainment of the means of tranquility, self restraint and the like; (4) the desire for liberation. BSūBhā on sūtra 1.1.1 (ed. J. L. Shastri p. 36 l. 3 - p. 37 l. 1): nityānityavastuvivekaḥ, ihāmutrārthabhogavirāgaḥ, śamadamādisādhanasaṃpat, mumukṣutvaṃ ca. Cp. Bader, 1990: 59. It should be clear from these and similar passages that not just anyone who is confronted with the Upaniṣads will attain liberation. Some will, others won't. The difference lies in the degree of preparedness of the students. The preliminary requirements are far from negligible; they exclude all those who have not studied the Veda in the prescribed manner (and therefore presumably Śūdras and women), and further reduce the numbers of those who have properly carried out their Vedic studies to those who have practised the intellectual and ascetic virtues indicated. See further Sawai, 1986. Regarding Śaṅkara's “improved Mīmāṃsā”, Tilmann Vetter (1979: 125) makes the following observation: [Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya] Einleitung und I 1 1-4 haben ... vor allem die Aufgabe die Vedānta-Schule (als Untersuchung des Brahman) deutlich von der Mīmāṃsā-Schule (als der Untersuchung des rituellen Werks) abzusetzen. Die prinzipielle Kompromisslosigkeit, mit der dies geschieht und eigentlich erst eine von der alten Schule der Veda-Interpretation unabhängige Schule der Upaniṣad-Interpretation geschaffen wird, mit der zumindest alle Versuche zurückgewiesen werden, die immer selbständiger werdende Upaniṣad-Interpretation doch noch als eine Abteilung der Karma-Mīmāṃsā zu deuten, darf man wohl als eine der bedeutendsten Leistungen Ś[aṅkara]s ansehen, bei der er wenig von Vorgängern übernommen haben dürfte. Vetter may well be right in thinking that Śaṅkara may have been the first to think out the principles of interpretation to be used for the Upaniṣads. But this is not so much a demarcation from traditional Mīmāṃsā, but rather an extension of Mīmāṃsā so as to include Upaniṣadic interpretation, too. Strictly speaking, and following Śaṅkara's logic, the traditional Mīmāṃsakas had done a good job, but had overlooked the crucial fact that, beside the injunctions, the Veda contains other sentences that provide information about things that cannot be contradicted by experience or by any other means of knowledge. These other sentences are the famous mahāvākyas of the Upaniṣads. If it is true that Śaṅkara fundamentally approved of traditional Mīmāṃsā and its methods, what did he think of the ritual activity which that school of interpretation had found to be the main, or even the only, message to be drawn from the Veda? Did he consider this conclusion mistaken? By no means. For those who aspire to the aims that can be obtained by sacrificing, sacrificing is the appropriate way. For those, however, who aspire for liberation, ritual activity plays no role. The question whether rites can play an introductory or purifying role seems to be answered differently in different works of Śaṅkara. With regard to the first prose portion of the Upadeśasāhasrī (Gadyabandha I), Vetter (1979: 139) makes the following observation: “Nirgends wird etwas davon gesagt, dass rituelle Werke, die man vor dem Stadium des strengen Entsagens tut eine vorbereitende (das Innere reinigende) Funktion haben können.” We read for example in Gadyabandha 1.30: Mayeda, 1973: 197; tr. Mayeda, 1979: 85, 220, modified. Mayeda (1979: 85 ff.) gives further citations confirming this position. ... pratiṣiddhatvād bhedadarśanasya, bhedaviṣayatvāc ca karmopādānasya, karmasādhanatvāc ca yajñopavītādeḥ karmasādhanopādānasya paramātmābhedapratipattyā pratiṣedhaḥ kṛto veditavyaḥ/ karmaṇāṃ tatsādhanānāṃ ca yajñopavītādīnāṃ paramātmābhedapratipattiviruddhatvāt/ saṃsāriṇo hi karmāṇi vidhīyante tatsādhanāni ca yajñopavītādīni, na paramātmano 'bhedadarśinaḥ/ bhedadarśanamātreṇa ca tato 'nyatvam/ ... it is prohibited [by the Śrutis] to hold the view that [Ātman] is different [from Brahma]; use of the rituals is [made] in the sphere of [the view] that [Ātman] is different [from Brahma]; and the sacred thread and the like are requisites for the rituals. Therefore, it should be known that the use of rituals and their requisites is prohibited, if the identity [of Ātman] with the highest Ātman is realized, since [the use of] rituals and their requisites such as the sacred thread is contradictory to the realization of the identity [of Ātman] with the highest Ātman. [The use of] rituals and their requisites such as the sacred thread is indeed enjoined upon a transmigrator [but] not upon one who holds the view of the identity [of Ātman] with the highest Ātman; and the difference [of Ātman] from It is merely due to the view that [Ātman] is different [from Brahma]. And Padyabandha 1.15 has: Mayeda, 1973: 73; tr. Mayeda, 1979: 87, 104. viruddhatvād ataḥ śakyaṃ karma kartuṃ na vidyayā/ sahaivaṃ viduṣā tasmāt karma heyaṃ mumukṣuṇā// Because of the incompatibility [of knowledge with action], therefore, one who knows so, being possessed of this knowledge, cannot perform action. For this reason action should be renounced by a seeker after final release. The Upadeśasāhasrī also contains some passages which seem to indicate that ritual activity should be carried out, perhaps even until the moment at which cessation of nescience is attained. Mayeda (1979: 88 ff.) discusses these passages and suggests that Śaṅkara's drastic denial of action was intended to shock his pupils into an insight into the true nature of the Self. Given that Vedāntic Mīmāṃsā presents itself as the correct interpretation of the Veda, and of its final parts in particular, it goes without saying that a precondition for the useful study of the Brahmasūtra — or more precisely, for the enquiry into Brahma — should be the study of the Veda. Depending on the inclination of the student, the study of ritual Mīmāṃsā — i.e. of the enquiry into Dharma — can at that point be skipped, allowing the student to concentrate on the insight to be obtained from the Upaniṣads, altogether leaving aside all ritual activity. This is what Śaṅkara says in his Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya. In his explanation of Brahmasūtra 1.1.1 (athāto brahmajijñāsā “Then therefore the enquiry into Brahma”) he raises the issue that atha ‘then’ indicates that enquiry into Brahma has to follow something else and asks what that could be. The answer is found in the following passages: BSūBhā on sūtra 1.1.1 (ed. J. L. Shastri p. 29 l. 1 - p. 33 l. 1). sati cānantaryārthatve yathā dharmajijñāsā pūrvavṛttaṃ vedādhyayanaṃ niyamenāpekṣate, evaṃ brahmajijñāsāpi yat pūrvavṛttaṃ niyamenāpekṣate tad vaktavyam/ svādhyāyānantaryaṃ tu samānam/ nanv iha karmāvabodhānantaryaṃ viśeṣaḥ/ na, dharmajijñāsāyāḥ prāg apy adhītavedāntasya brahmajijñāsopapatteḥ/ Given that the meaning ‘immediate succession’ is [expressed by the word atha], it should be stated what it is that enquiry into Brahma requires as necessarily preceding it, just as enquiry into Dharma requires study of the Veda as necessarily preceding it. The fact of being preceded by Vedic study is however common [both to the enquiry into Brahma and to the enquiry into Dharma]. [Question:] Isn't the difference in this case [of enquiry into Brahma] that it is [to be] preceded by understanding ritual activity (i.e., Pūrvamīmāṃsā)? [Answer:] No, for enquiry into Brahma is possible for one who has studied the Veda, even before enquiry into Dharma. What further preconditions are there, then, for someone to enter upon “enquiry into Brahma”? The answer is to be found in the following sequel to the preceding passage: BSūBhā on sūtra 1.1.1 (ed. J. L. Shastri p. 36 l. 2 - p. 37 l. 2). tasmāt kim api vaktavyaṃ yadanantaraṃ brahmajijñāsopadiśyata iti/ ucyate: nityānityavastuvivekaḥ, ihāmutrārthabhogavirāgaḥ, śamadamādisādhanasaṃpat, mumukṣutvaṃ ca/ teṣu hi satsu prāg api dharmajijñāsāyā ūrdhvaṃ ca śakyate jijñāsituṃ jñātuṃ ca, na viparyaye/ Something must therefore be stated after which enquiry into Brahma is taught. The answer is: [The requirements for entering upon enquiry into Brahma are] discernment between eternal and non-eternal things; renunciation with regard to enjoyment in this and the next world; excellence in means such as peace, restraint, etc.; and desire to become liberated. For when these [elements] are present, one can desire to know, and know, even before enquiry into Dharma, as well as after it, not [however] in the opposite case. These and other passages show that Śaṅkara's ‘improved’ Mīmāṃsā disposes, for all intents and purposes, of ritual Mīmāṃsā, leaving place only for Brahma-Mīmāṃsā. Śaṅkara does not say this in so many words, but his admission that one does not miss out if one does not study ritual Mīmāṃsā and does not perform sacrificial rites says it all. Śaṅkara's is a “palace revolution” inside Mīmāṃsā, leaving an altogether different ideology in charge. If the preceding pages have shown that Śaṅkara presents himself more often as a Mīmāṃsaka than as a philosopher, some features of his writing that have puzzled earlier commentators become understandable. Paul Hacker (1968: 120 [214] ff.) has expressed surprise about the fact that Śaṅkara offers few if any rational arguments in defence of monism, which is yet a central part of his philosophy. Hacker looks for a solution in a hypothesis concerning the biography of Śaṅkara (first Yogin, then Advaitin). However, Śaṅkara the Mīmāṃsaka had no need for proofs of monism. What is more, knowledge derived from the Veda should be unobtainable by other means. This includes knowledge of monism. The realisation that Śaṅkara presents himself as a Mīmāṃsaka and that for this reason he has no need to argue for positions which, he claims, can only be learnt from the Veda, gives rise to difficulties in some isolated cases. Hacker already drew attention to the second prose portion of the Upadeśasāhasrī, and Vetter has dedicated a chapter of his book Studien zur Lehre und Entwicklung Śaṅkaras (1979: 75 ff.) to it. This portion presents an argument for monism, if only a short one (Gadyabandha 2.109: ... ātmajyotiṣaḥ ... advaitabhāvaś ca sarvapratyayabhedeṣv avyabhicārāt “Dass das Licht des Selbst ... zweitlos ist, folgt daraus, dass es in keiner der verschiedenen Vorstellungen fehlt” tr. Hacker). This same second prose portion distinguishes itself further by the fact that it does not cite a single Upaniṣadic passage, and yet ends with the statement of the teacher who declares to to his pupil: “Henceforth ... you are liberated from the suffering of transmigratory existence” (Gadyabandha 2.109: [a]taḥ paraṃ ... saṃsāraduḥkhān mukto 'sīti). A passage like this is problematic in the light of what we now know about Śaṅkara as a Mīmāṃsaka. Vetter has cogently argued (1979: 75 f.) that this portion of the Upadeśasāhasrī is an independent text, Vetter argues in particular against the reasons adduced by Hacker (1949: 7-9) and Mayeda (1973: 66-67) to demonstrate that the three prose portions belong together and form a unity. He shows most notably that the notion according to which they respectively deal with hearing (śravaṇa), thinking (manana) and meditation (nididhyāsana) is in conflict with the precise wording of the text. so that one is entitled to wonder whether it was composed before Śaṅkara had come to think as a Mīmāṃsaka. (This comes close to Vetter own position.) See also Vetter, 1978a: 52. Alternatively, one may wonder whether this particular portion was really composed by Śaṅkara himself. It is true that Mayeda (1965; 1973: 22-64) gives a long list of arguments in order to show that Śaṅkara is the author of the Upadeśasāhasrī. These arguments start however from the assumption that all the texts brought together in the Upadeśasāhasrī have one and the same author. If we confine our attention to the second prose portion (which covers 13 pages in Mayeda's edition and has therefore a decent size) the situation changes drastically. Most of Mayeda's arguments cannot be applied to this portion. Where various early authors have cited from the Upadeśasāhasrī (though without using this name), none of them appear to have cited from its prose parts. Of the terms which are used in a fashion which is typical for Śaṅkara, only one occurs in the second prose portion. In other words, of all the arguments presented by Mayeda, only one applies to the second prose portion of the Upadeśasāhasrī, viz., the fact that here avidyā is used much in the way it is used in Śaṅkara's Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya. There is, finally, a third way to make sense of the peculiarities of the second prose portion of the Upadeśasāhasrī. They may indicate that the line between mīmāṃsic and non-mīmāṃsic Vedānta, even in the case of this important thinker, was not always as clearly drawn as we might expect. This does not change the fact that there where Śaṅkara speaks as a (Brahma-)Mīmāṃsaka, Upaniṣadic statements are not merely cited to support his thought; they are an essential part of it. They are not cited to support views that are also supported otherwise. Quite the contrary, they are the source of knowledge which cannot be obtained otherwise. §3.2. Other early commentators on the Brahma Sūtra Having discussed in some detail the way in which Śaṅkara presents his thought as an improved form of Mīmāṃsā, we can be brief with regard to the other early commentators of the Brahmasūtra whose works have survived. Chronologically next to Śaṅkara comes Bhāskara. Ingalls, 1952; 1954: 293 n. 4; van Buitenen, 1961; Raghavan, 1967; Rüping, 1977: 12 ff. Like Śaṅkara, Bhāskara establishes under Brahmasūtra 1.1.4 that the proper application of the principles of Mīmāṃsā support his claim that Upaniṣadic statements can provide knowledge about an established thing, viz. Brahma. Bhāskara states here (p. 13 l. 14-16): vaidikānām apauruṣeyatvād anapekṣatvaṃ pramāṇāntarānadhigatatvāc ca mūlakāraṇasya nāpariniṣṭhitatvaṃ kāryatvaṃ vā prāmāṇye kāraṇaṃ kiṃ tv anadhigatārthagantṛtvam Since Vedic [statements] are without author, they do not depend upon [other means of knowledge]. Since moreover the root cause [of the world] (i.e., Brahma) is not known through any other means of knowledge, it is not its not being established or its having to be carried out that is the cause of the authoritativeness [of the relevant Vedic statements]. On the contrary, it is the fact that [those Vedic statements] make known an object that is [otherwise] unknown [which is the cause for those statements being authoritative]. Bhāskara's formulation is a bit complex, but his intentions are clear. The ritual Mīmāṃsakas may maintain that only things that are not established and that have to be carried out, i.e., activities, can be made known through the appropriate Vedic statements, i.e., the injunctions, Bhāskara formulates the criterion differently. Vedic statements must make known what is not known by other means. This includes activities that are to be carried out, to be sure, but not only those. It also includes the root cause of the world, for this cannot be known by other means either. Rāmānuja introduces his discussion of Brahmasūtra 1.1.4 as follows in his Śrībhāṣya (p. 306): yady api pramāṇāntarāgocaraṃ brahma, tathāpi pravṛttinivṛttiparatvābhāvena siddharūpaṃ brahma na śāstraṃ pratipādayati, ity āśaṅkyāha: ... If one has the doubt that, even though Brahma is not covered by any other means of knowledge [but the Veda], yet the Veda (śāstra) does not teach Brahma because, being an established thing, it has nothing to do with activity and abstention from activity, the answer is given in what follows. These two short passages should suffice to show that Bhāskara and Rāmānuja share with Śaṅkara one fundamental tenet: Brahma can only be known through the Veda. That is to say, like Śaṅkara they treat Vedānta as a form of Mīmāṃsā. §3.3. Maṇḍana Miśra We can compare Śaṅkara's position with that of his possible contemporary For a recent discussion, see Thrasher, 1993: 112 ff.; further 1979. Maṇḍana Miśra. Maṇḍana is familiar with various views regarding the Upaniṣads, as he points out at the very beginning of his Brahmasiddhi (p. 1 l. 7-11): vedānteṣu vipratipadyante vipaścitaḥ: kecid aprāmāṇyaṃ manyante, ātmanaḥ pramāṇāntarasiddhatve teṣām anuvādakatvāt, asiddhatve saṃbandhāgrahaṇāt apadārthatve vākyasyāviṣayatvāt, pravṛttinivṛttyanupadeśe cāpuruṣārthatvāt/ anye tu pratipattikartavyatāprāmāṇyavyājenāprāmāṇyam evāhuḥ/ anye tu karmavidhivirodhāt pratyakṣādivirodhāc ca śrutārthaparigrahe upacaritārthān manyante/ The learned disagree with respect to the Upaniṣads. -Some think that they are not a means of valid cognition, (i) because, if the self is known through another means of knowledge, the [Upaniṣads do nothing but] repeat [what is already known]; (ii) if [on the other hand, the self] is not [already] known, it cannot be the object of a sentence, given that it is not the object of a word because the link [between word and object] cannot [in that case] be grasped; (iii) since they do not give instruction into what to do and what not to do, they serve no human purpose. -Others state that they are not really a means of valid cognition, using the excuse that they are a means providing the cognition that knowledge [of the self] must be accomplished. -Others again think that the Upaniṣads express figurative meanings, this because they are in conflict with the ritual injunctions and with perception etc. Maṇḍana's own rejection of these positions finds expression in the immediately following sentence: tannirāsāyedam ārabhyate “To reject these [positions] this [work] is begun.” Like Śaṅkara, Maṇḍana, too, maintains in his Brahmasiddhi that Brahma can and must be known from the Veda. However, he believes that Brahma can be known through perception as well. The chapter called Tarkakāṇḍa shows elaborately that perception presents non-difference (abheda), whereas the distinctions (or particulars) which we believe to perceive are due to mental construction (vikalpa): “Perception is first, without mental construction, and has for its object the bare thing. The constructive cognitions which follow it plunge into particulars.” (p. 71 l. 1-2: vastumātraviṣayaṃ prathamam avikalpakaṃ pratyakṣam; tatpūrvās tu vikalpabuddhayo viśeṣān avagāhant[e]; tr. Thrasher, 1993: 80). Maṇḍana does not say explicitly that non-difference (abheda) or the bare thing (vastumātra) are identical with Brahma, but Tilmann Vetter (1969: 98 n. 165) and much more elaborately Allen Wright Thrasher (1993: 77-87) argue convincingly that such is the case. In fact, the characteristics of the ‘bare thing’ of the Tarkakāṇḍa coincide largely with the features by which Brahma is described in the Brahmakāṇḍa. We must therefore assume that the following passage in the final chapter (Siddhikāṇḍa) of the Brahmasiddhi presents Maṇḍana's own position (p. 157 l. 14-15; cp. Thrasher, 1993: 86): athavā na loke 'tyantam aprasiddhaṃ brahma, sarvapratyayavedyatvāt, brahmaṇo vyatirekeṇa pratyetavyasyābhāvāt, viśeṣapratyayānāṃ ca sāmānyarūpānugamāt ... Or rather, Brahma is not totally unknown in ordinary experience, because it is knowable in every cognition, because no object of cognition except Brahma exists, and cognitions of particulars are always accompanied by the form of the universal, ... Nicholson (2003: 585) speaks of “the intellectually jarring situation of identifying the vastu-mātra ... with the universal (sāmānya)” into which Maṇḍana forces himself. Maṇḍana, then, maintains that Brahma is the object of perception. In the chapter called Brahmakāṇḍa he also suggests that a certain kind of reasoning leads to knowledge of Brahma; this reasoning runs as follows (p. 26 l. 16-20): Cp. Vetter, 1969: 99, and 98 n. 165. viśeṣanivṛttyaiva tat śabdena buddhau nidhīyate, suvarṇatattvavat; na hi suvarṇatattvaṃ piṇḍarucakādisaṃsthānabhedopaplavarahitaṃ dṛśyate; na ca ta eva suvarṇatattvam, tatparityāge 'pi bhāvāt saṃsthānāntare; atha cādṛṣṭasaṃsthānabhedopaplavavivekam api buddhyā bhedāpohadvāreṇa svayaṃ pratīyate, parasmai ca pratipādyate. Only by removing distinctions one obtains, with the help of the word, knowledge of it (i.e. of Brahma), as of the essence of gold. For the essence of gold, free from distractions in the form of specific shapes like that of a clump, neck ornament, etc., is not observed. Nor do those [specific shapes] themselves constitute the essence of gold, because [the essence] is still there, in the form of another shape, even when those particular shapes are abandoned. And yet [the essence of gold] itself, even though its distinction from distractions in the form of specific shapes [can] not be seen, is known by means of the removal of the specificities with the help of thought, and it can be communicated to someone else. However, because perception is always sullied by ignorance, Maṇḍana holds on to the position that knowledge of Brahma is based on the Veda alone (p. 157 l. 19-21; cp. Thrasher, 1993 p. 86): āmnāyaikanibandhanatvaṃ tu tasyocyate, pratyakṣādīnam avidyāsaṃbhinnatvāt; pratyastamitanikhilabhedena rūpeṇāviṣayīkaraṇād bhedapratyastamayasyāmnāyāvagamyatvād iti/ But this [Brahma as the non-existence of phenomenal diversity] is said to be based on the Veda (āmnāya) alone, because perception etc. are associated with avidyā. For, because they do not take [Brahma] as their object under the form where all difference has disappeared, the disappearance of difference is knowable from the Veda [alone]. Verse 2 of the Brahmakāṇḍa (p. 23 l. 18-19) is no doubt to be understood in the same way: āmnāyataḥ prasiddhiṃ ca kavayo 'sya pracakṣate/ bhedaprapañcavilayadvāreṇa ca nirūpaṇām// The wise proclaim knowledge of this (i.e., Brahma) on the basis of the Veda, and its determination through the dissolution of the manifoldness of divisions. Verses 3 and 4 of the Siddhikāṇḍa (p. 157 l. 10-13) leave perhaps least occasion for ambiguity: sarvapratyayavedye vā brahmarūpe vyavasthite/ prapañcasya pravilayaḥ śabdena pratipādyate// pravilīnaprapañcena tadrūpeṇa na gocaraḥ/ mānāntarasyeti matam āmnāyaikanibandhanam// Or rather (vā), though the form of Brahma is established as being known in each cognition, the resorption of manifoldness is conveyed by the word [only]. Since [Brahma] in that form, in which manifoldness has been resorbed, is not the object of any other means of cognition, it is considered to exclusively depend on the Veda. Thrasher (1993: 81f.) draws attention to the fact that Maṇḍana was not the first to hold the view that perception gives access to Brahma. Kumārila Bhaṭṭa is acquainted with (and criticizes) the view that perception has the highest universal as object, and that constructive cognitions add the distinctions. Ślokavārttika, Pratyakṣa, 114-116: mahāsāmānyam anyais tu dravyaṃ sad iti cocyate/ sāmānyaviṣayatvaṃ ca pratyakṣasyaivam āśritam// viśeṣās tu pratīyante savikalpakabuddhibhiḥ/ te ca kecit pratidravyaṃ kecid bahuṣu saṃśritāḥ// tān akalpayad utpannaṃ vyāvṛttānugatātmanā/ gavy aśve copajātaṃ tu pratyakṣaṃ na viśiṣyate//. Kumārila's commentators Umbeka and Pārthasārathi Miśra, moreover, attribute this view to Vedāntins. Kumārila's brief remarks do not however permit us to find out whether those other Vedāntins yet maintained, like Maṇḍana, that knowledge of Brahma is based on the Veda only. It is therefore possible that Maṇḍana, while continuing an earlier tradition to the extent that perception has Brahma as object, gives a mīmāṃsic twist to this tradition by emphasizing that perception gives imperfect access to Brahma, which must therefore be completed through the Veda, so much so that in the end knowledge of Brahma is based on the Veda alone. If this understanding of Maṇḍana's role in the history of Vedāntic thought is correct, we must conclude that this thinker made a determined effort to join the two kinds of Vedānta that existed in his time: Vedānta as speculative philosophy and Vedānta as Mīmāṃsā. His Brahmasiddhi shows that in the end he opted for Vedānta as Mīmāṃsā, without however doing away with all the ideas that more philosophically oriented Vedāntins before him had developed. §4. Vedānta and liberation as part of Karma-Mīmāṃsā The preceding sections have shown that we may have to distinguish two forms of Vedāntic philosophy, one which is quite independent of the details of Vedic interpretation, and one which presents itself as an improved form of Mīmāṃsā, the most sophisticated manner of Vedic interpretation. The former is primarily a religico-philosophical movement, which claims allegiance, to be sure, to the Upaniṣads, but develops its way to liberation more or less independently, without claiming that this way is the outcome of the correct study of the Veda. The latter form of Vedāntic philosophy does precisely that, presenting itself as a school of Vedic hermeneutics. It may not be possible to determine with certainty why and how the link between Vedāntic philosophy and Mīmāṃsā has come about. It seems however clear that a certain tension between the two must have existed from an early date onward. If and to the extent that the Vedāntists wanted ‘their’ Upaniṣads to be included among those part of the Veda that had to be taken literally, a confrontation with Mīmāṃsā could hardly be avoided. Those Mīmāṃsakas, on the other hand, who felt attracted to the new ideas about liberation, rebirth etc. that were gaining ground all around them, were challenged to find a way to extend their hermeneutical rules so as to include the views expressed in the Upaniṣads. We do not know for sure who took the initiative. However, there are various indications which suggest that efforts were made within Mīmāṃsā to extend its scope. About the attempts to include Vedāntic thought into the Karma-Mīmāṃsā, Vetter says the following (1969: 18-19) Die Mīmāṃsā versuchte zu jener Zeit einen Erlösungsweg in ihr System aufzunehmen und dadurch vor allem die konkurrierende vedische Schule des Vedānta zu absorbieren. Wie wir aus der Polemik bei Śaṅkara und Maṇḍana erfahren, lautete dabei die wichtigste Behauptung der Mīmāṃsā, die Erkenntnis des Selbst sei als für die Erlösung ‘vorgeschrieben’ zu betrachten. Formal lässt sich das durch gewisse Upaniṣadsätze stützen, z.B. ‘das Selbst soll man schauen’ usw. ([BĀrUp] II, 4, 5). Damit wäre der Vedānta keine von der Mīmāṃsā getrennte Disziplin mehr; denn dann wird vom Veda zum Ziel der Erlösung ein Mittel bereitgestellt, das man auszuführen hat. Unfortunately no early texts belonging to these kinds of Mīmāṃsakas are known to have survived. However, as pointed out by Vetter, Śaṅkara and Maṇḍana criticise this position. Maṇḍana does so, for example, at the very beginning of his Brahmasiddhi, in the passage cited in §3.3 above. A passage where Śaṅkara does the same occurs in the first chapter of the verse section of his Upadeśasāhasrī: Upadeśasāhasrī, Padyabandha 1.8-11; text Mayeda, 1973: 72; tr. Mayeda, 1979: 103-04. For other passages from Śaṅkara's works, see Alston, 1989; 1989a. nanu karma tathā nityaṃ kartavyaṃ jīvane sati/ vidyāyāḥ sahakāritvaṃ mokṣaṃ prati hi tad vrajet// yathā vidyā tathā karma coditatvāviśeṣataḥ/ pratyavāyasmṛteś caiva kāryaṃ karma mumukṣibhiḥ// nanu dhruvaphalā vidyā nānyat kiṃcid apekṣate/ nāgniṣṭomo yathaivānyad dhruvakāryo 'py apekṣate// tathā dhruvaphalā vidyā karma nityam apekṣate/ ity evaṃ kecid icchanti na karma pratikūlataḥ// [Objection:] “Should not [certain] action too always be performed while life lasts? For this [action], being concomitant with knowledge [of Brahma], leads to final release. I am not sure that this translation does full justice to the original. A more literal translation might be: “For that concomitance of knowledge [with action] leads to final release”. “Action, like knowledge [of Brahma, should be adhered to], since [both of them] are equally enjoined [by the Śrutis]. As the Smṛti also [lays it down that] transgression [results from the neglect of action, so] action should be performed by seekers after final release. “[If you say that] as knowledge [of Brahma] has permanent fruit, and so does not depend upon anything else, [we reply:] Not so! Just as the Agniṣṭoma sacrifice, though it has permanent fruit, depends upon things other than itself, “so, though knowledge [of Brahma] has permanent fruit, it always depends upon action. Thus some people think.” [Reply:] Not so, because action is incompatible [with knowledge]. There were other Mīmāṃsakas, who decided to include the notion of liberation into their own system without introducing knowledge of Brahma as a condition. It has already been pointed out above that Śabara shows no awareness of the notion of liberation. Attention has also been drawn to Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.2.1 (āmnāyasya kriyārthatvād ānarthakyam atadarthānāṃ ... “Since the Veda is for [ritual] activity, [passages] that are not for that are without purpose ...”), which constitutes an argument against the original unity of Pūrva- and Uttara-Mīmāṃsā, and for the absence of the notion of liberation — or stronger: for the rejection of that notion — in ritual Mīmāṃsā. Attention can furthermore be drawn to Mīmāṃsāsūtra 4.3.14: sa svargaḥ syāt sarvān praty aviśiṣṭatvāt “The [result of the Viśvajit-sacrifice] must be heaven, because [desire for heaven] is present, without distinction, in all [people]”; this sūtra can hardly have been composed by someone who “really” aimed for liberation. Prabhākara — who commented upon the Śābara Bhāṣya and appears to have lived and worked in the first half of the 7th century C.E. (Yoshimizu, 1997: 37-49) — still maintains that heaven is the one thing which all humans without exception desire to attain (Yoshimizu, 1997: 179-180, with n. 81). However, other ritualists did become interested in the notion of liberation. Yoshimizu (1997: 179-180 n. 80) contrasts the position of Kumārila in this regard with that of Prabhākara, probably his contemporary: See also Taber's and Yoshimizu's contributions to this volume. Kumārila hingegen schliesst sich nicht an die traditionnelle Ansicht der Mīmāṃsā-Schule an, dass der Himmel das endgültige Ziel des Menschen ist und das Nitya-Opfer das Mittel zum Erlangen des Himmels ist. Um die Veranstaltung des Nitya-Opfers in den Übungsweg zur Erlösung einzuschliessen, behauptet Kumārila vielmehr in allen seinen Werken, dass das Nitya-Opfer in der Tat nur zur Beseitigung der von ihm begangenen Sünde beiträgt; vgl. [Ślokavārttika] Sambandhākṣepaparihāra k. 110: “Wer sich Erlösung wünscht, soll sich unter den (im Veda vorgeschriebenen Handlungen) nicht mit dem fakultativen Opfer und der verbotenen (Handlung) beschäftigen, soll aber das periodische Opfer und das gelegentliche Opfer verrichten, indem er sich die Beseitigung der Sünde wünscht” (mokṣārthī na pravarteta tatra kāmyaniṣiddhayoḥ/ nityanaimittike kuryāt pratyavāyajihāsayā//); [Tantravārttika] ii, 228, 16-17 ... : “Die je nach der Lebensstufe und der Sozialklasse festgelegten periodischen und gelegentlichen Opfer soll man verrichten, um [durch die gelegentlichen Opfer] die früher begangene Sünde zu vernichten und [durch die periodischen Opfer] der wegen des Versäumnisses zu verursachenden künftigen Sünde vorzubeugen” (pratyāśramavarṇaniyatāni nityanaimittikakarmāṇy api pūrvakṛtaduritakṣayārtham akaraṇanimittānāgatapratyavāyaparihārārthaṃ ca kartavyāni); [Ṭupṭīkā] v, 246, 4-6: “Es gibt fürwahr keinen Menschen, der bei [der Ausführung] des unbedingt zu tuenden (Opfers) kein Ergebnis begehren würde. Wenn [der Gegner meint]: ‘Wer sich Erlösung wünscht, [begehrt kein Ergebnis]’, stimmt das nicht. Auch der (Erlösung begehrende Mensch) kann die Vernichtung der Sünde [als Ergebnis des Opfers] begehren, weil die Erlösung unmöglich ist, wenn die (Sünde) vorhanden ist.” (na hīdṛṣaḥ puruṣo 'sti yo 'vaśyakartavye phalaṃ na kāmayate. mokṣārthī cet. tan na, tenāpy avaśyaṃ pāpakṣaya eṣitavyaḥ. tasmin sati mokṣābhāvāt). In the hands of Kumārila, therefore, the performance of Vedic ritual becomes a means to attain liberation. For details see Mesquita, 1994; Bronkhorst, 2007a. The Buddhist Bhavya criticises Mīmāṃsā in chapter 9 of his Madhyamakahṛdaya. Surprisingly, he attributes to the Mīmāṃsakas only one aim, liberation (apavarga, mokṣa), and does not even mention heaven. This suggests one of two things: Either Bhavya was not well informed about the real concerns of the Mīmāṃsakas of his time, or he was acquainted with Mīmāṃsakas who maintained that ritual action leads to liberation. The very first verses of the chapter concerned, the Mīmāṃsātattvanirṇayāvatāra, states Bhavya's understanding of Mīmāṃsā quite explicitly: Lindtner, 1999: 253 (text and translation); 2001: 92 (text). eke 'pavargasanmārgadhyānajñānāpavādinaḥ/ kriyāmātreṇa tatprāptiṃ pratipādyānapatrapāḥ// śāstroktavrīhipaśvājyapatnīsaṃbandhakarmaṇaḥ/ nānyo mārgo 'pavargāya yukta ity āhur āgamāt// Without any sense of shame some (i.e., Mīmāṃsakas) deny that meditation and insight [constitute] the true way to deliverance (apavarga). They insist that it can only be achieved by rituals. They say that according to tradition (āgama) there is no other correct way to deliverance (apavarga) than the rituals prescribed in the sacred texts, i.e. [rituals that involve] rice, cattle, butter and participation of one's wife. This might be taken to mean that the idea of liberation came to be grafted upon Vedic sacrifice already at the time of Bhavya, at least in the opinion of some Mīmāṃsakas. Alternatively, we may have to accept that Bhavya's information about Mīmāṃsā was incomplete. It will be useful here to draw attention to the fact that certain Vedāntins, among them Bhāskara and Rāmānuja, represent the view that a combination of ritual activity and insight into the true nature of the self leads to liberation (see below, §5). They were not the first to do so. The following passage from the Manusmṛti expresses essentially the same point of view (Manu 12.88-90): sukhābhyudayikaṃ caiva naiḥśreyasikam eva ca/ pravṛttaṃ ca nivṛttaṃ ca dvividhaṃ karma vaidikam// iha cāmutra vā kāmyaṃ pravṛttaṃ karma kīrtyate/ niṣkāmaṃ jñānapūrvaṃ tu nivṛttam upadiśyate// pravṛttaṃ karma saṃsevya devānām eti sāmyatām/ nivṛttaṃ sevamānas tu bhūtāny atyeti pañca vai// Vedic ritual acts are of two kinds: engaging in activity (pravṛtta) and abstaining from activity (nivṛtta). [The former] leads to the rise of happiness, [the latter] to liberation. In this world and in the next, optional ritual acts are known as ‘engaging in activity’, whereas obligatory ritual acts accompanied by knowledge are taught to be ‘abstaining from activity’. Having been dedicated to ritual acts that are ‘engaging in activity’ one becomes equal to the gods; being dedicated to [ritual acts that are] ‘abstaining from activity’, on the other hand, one passes beyond the five elements. Two verses later, interestingly, the Manusmṛti states the opposite, viz., that a Brahmin should abandon ritual activity: “A priest should give up even the activities described above and devote himself diligently to the knowledge of the self, to tranquillity, and to the recitation of the Veda” (Manu 12.92: yathoktāny api karmāṇi parihāya dvijottamaḥ/ ātmajñāne śame ca syād vedābhyāse ca yatnavān//; tr. Doniger and Smith, 1991: 287). The translators point out in a footnote: “A similar passage in favour of renunciation, even in preference to the Vedic ritual that is otherwise Manu's first concern, appears at 6.86 and 6.96.” It may here be recalled that contradictions like this one are frequent in the Manusmṛti, which can hardly have been composed by one single author. These few passages illustrate well enough that inside the ritual tradition forces were at work to incorporate the notion of liberation, either by including knowledge of Brahma among the things enjoined in the Veda, or by adding it as a precondition for carrying out ritual, or finally by simply claiming that the correct execution of the ritual by itself was an essential step on the way to liberation. §5. Pūrva-Mīmāṃsāsūtra, Uttara-Mīmāṃsāsūtra and the teacher quotations Asko Parpola, in some articles that have already been referred to above, makes the suggestion that the terms Pūrvamīmāṃsā and Uttaramīmāṃsā “seem to have come to being as a result of an erroneous analysis as PM-S and UM-S respectively of the names Pūrvamīmāṃsāsūtra (abbreviated PMS) and Uttaramīmāṃsāsūtra (UMS).” (Parpola, 1981: 147-148). He continues: “I suspect that originally the terms PM and UM did not occur at all outside the book titles or rather headings PMS and UMS, but have evolved from these, and that the correct analysis of the latter is P-MS and U-MS. In other words, I suggest that the references of the words pūrva and uttara is not the two branches of Mīmāṃsā as a philosophical system, but the two portions of one single work called Mīmāṃsāsūtra. PMS would thus have originally meant ‘the former or first part of the Mīmāṃsāsūtra’, and UMS correspondingly ‘the latter or second part of the Mīmāṃsāsūtra’, not ‘the Sūtra of Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā/Uttara-Mīmāṃsā’.” Parpola's (1994: 293 n. 2) statement to the effect that “This hypothesis is endorsed by Clooney 1990: 25ff.” seems premature. Clooney says (1990: 27): “But without proposing that [Parpola's] efforts to relate the two Mīmāṃsās are entirely premature, I suggest that we must study in depth and detail the twelve Adhyāyas of Jaimini and four Adhyāyas of Bādarāyaṇa in order to understand what is actually being said and in what manner in the Pūrva and Uttara Mīmāṃsās. Working ‘from within’ will shed a great deal of light on the question of the unity of the two systems and do so in a more fruitful fashion than by considering the ‘Mīmīṃsā’ titles (which in any case did not belong to the texts in the very beginning).” Parpola provides a number of arguments in defence of his thesis, some of which have already been dealt with above. He does not however address the question to what extent the textual evidence supports the priority of the expressions Pūrvamīmāṃsāsūtra and Uttaramīmāṃsāsūtra to Pūrvamīmāṃsā and Uttaramīmāṃsā respectively. And yet, this is an issue that cannot be ignored. The Mīmāṃsākoṣa has no entries for (or beginning with) Pūrvamīmāṃsā and Uttaramīmāṃsā. This raises the question whether the two terms can be found in surviving Pūrvamīmāṃsā works. No such occurrences are known to me. They do not, for example, occur in Megumu Honda's “Index to the Ślokavārttika” (1993). The colophons to Śaṅkara's commentary on the Brahmasūtra call his commentary Śārīrakamīmāṃsābhāṣya. This text never uses the terms Uttaramīmāṃsā or Uttaramīmāṃsāsūtra according to the Word Index brought out under the general editorship of T.M.P. Mahadevan (1971, 1973). Cp. e.g. Padmapāda's Pañcapādikā (ed. S. Subrahmanyaśāstri) p. 69, 298, 300, 511: vedāntamīmāṃsā; p. 510: vedāntavākyamīmāṃsā. They do not occur in Śaṅkara's Upadeśasāhasrī, according to the Index of Words in Mayeda's (1973) edition, nor in his Gītābhāṣya, according to D'Sa's Word-Index (1985). I have not found these terms in Padmapāda's Pañcapādikā. Sureśvara, too, in the passage considered above, speaks of the Śārīraka which, in view of the context, must stand for Śārīraka Sūtra. Bhāskara, a commentator on the Brahmasūtra who must be slightly younger than Śaṅkara, does not appear to use the terms Pūrvamīmāṃsā and Uttaramīmāṃsā. The fact that he uses the term Mīmāṃsā to refer to ritual Mīmāṃsā (e.g. p. 6 l. 12-13: na ca brahmaviṣayo vicāro mīmāṃsāyāṃ kvacid adhikaraṇe vartate ...; p. 15 l. 20-21: na ca niyogasya vākyārthatve mīmāṃsāyāṃ bhāṣyākṣaraṃ śārīrake vā sūtrākṣaraṃ sūcakam asti Bhāskara's subsequent remarks cite a sentence from the Bhāṣya (ye prāhuḥ kim api bhāvayed iti te svargakāmapadasambandhāt svargaṃ bhāvayed iti brūyuḥ) which is Śabara on MīmSū 2.1.1, p. 340; and a sūtra (kṛtaprayatnāpekṣas tu ...) which is Brahmasūtra 2.3.42.) would seem to confirm this, in spite of the fact that his commentary calls itself in the colophons Śārīrakamīmāṃsā Bhāṣya. An early attestation of Pūrva- and Uttara-Mīmāṃsā occurs in Yāmuna's Ātmasiddhi, The Ātmasiddhi is traditionally considered part of Yāmuna's Siddhitraya, but was originally an independent work; see Mesquita, 1973: 184. where it is stated (p. 25 l. 12-13): Cited Mesquita, 1988: 62. prapañcitaś ca pūrvottaramīmāṃsābhāgayor nirālambanatvapratiṣedhaḥ; yathārthakhyātisamarthanena ca śāstra iti na vyāvarṇyate. Mesquita (1988: 62 n. 77) translates: “Und die Widerlegung der [von den Buddhisten gelehrten] Objektlosigkeit [der Erkenntnis] wurde [in den Werken] der beiden Teile[, nämlich der] Pūrva- und der Uttaramīmāṃsā, ausführlich vorgetragen, und [zuletzt auch] in [Nāthamunis] Lehrbuch [Nyāyatattva] zusammen mit der Rechtfertigung der [Irrtumslehre] Yathārthakhyāti. Deshalb wird [sie hier] nicht dargelegt.” Rāmānuja's Śrībhāṣya speaks of Pūrva- and Uttara-Mīmāṃsā in a passage which points out the difference between the two (p. 4 l. 9-10: ... pūrvottaramīmāṃsayoḥ bhedaḥ). The Prapañcahṛdaya, as we have seen, speaks of the Pūrvamīmāṃsāśāstra which it considers to reflect upon the Dharma connected with the Pūrvakāṇḍa, and of the Uttaramīmāṃsāśāstra which reflects upon Brahma of the Uttarakāṇḍa. This might be taken as an indication that the Prapañcahṛdaya is a relatively recent text, dating roughly from the time of Yāmuna and Rāmānuja. See note 26, above. Among more recent texts that mention Pūrva- and Uttara-Mīmāṃsā Sāyaṇa's commentary on the Ṛgveda (e.g. vol. I p. 10 l. 4 and 6) may be mentioned. See further Śrīnivāsa's Yatipatimatadīpikā (= Yatīndramatadīpikā) p. 12: sa ca vedaḥ karmabrahmapratipādakapūrvottarabhāgābhyāṃ dvidhā bhinnaḥ/ ārādhanakarmapratipādakaṃ pūrvakāṇḍam/ ārādhyapratipādakam uttarakāṇḍam/ ubhayor mīmāṃsayor aikaśāstryam/. It will be clear that, as long as no earlier occurrences of the expressions Pūrva- and Uttara-mīmāṃsā will have been identified, Parpola's proposal as to the original use of these expressions will not be based on any direct evidence. However, a more plausible interpretation of these terms is possible. Consider first the four hypotheses presented and rejected as pūrvapakṣas by Parpola (1981: 145-146): 1) “the Pūrva-mīmāṃsā has come into being as a philosophical system earlier than the Uttara-mīmāṃsā”; 2) “Pūrva-mīmāṃsā is so called because it deals with that part of the Vedic literature which was composed earlier, ... while the Uttara-māmāṃsā is concerned with the later part of the Śruti”; 3) “Pūrva- and Uttara-mīmāṃsā [are] ‘the discussion of the first and second (part of the Veda)’ respectively”; 4) “Pūrva-mīmāṃsā [is] ‘the preliminary investigation’, ... establishing beyond doubt the authority and reliability of the Veda and elaborating methods of interpreting it. It thus provides the requirements needed for the Uttara-mīmāṃsā or ‘the final investigation’”. Parpola is probably right in rejecting all these four hypotheses, but his reason for doing so, viz. that all these interpretations erroneously take the existence of the terms Pūrvamīmāṃsā and Uttaramīmāṃsā for granted, does not appear to be valid, as we have seen. The fourth hypothesis may however be closest to the truth. This can be seen as follows. For Śaṅkara, as we have seen, Vedāntic thought (which he calls Śārīraka- or Brahma-Mīmāṃsā) can be studied instead of ritual Mīmāṃsā (which he does not call Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā). The two are not therefore ordered in time for him. The situation is however altogether different for other commentators of the Brahmasūtra. Bhāskara states that reflection on Dharma has to precede reflection on Brahma (p. 2 l. 25-26: pūrvaṃ tu dharmajijñāsā kartavyā; p. 3 l. 25-26: tasmāt pūrvavṛttād dharmajñānād anantaraṃ brahmajijñāseti yuktam). Reflection on Dharma is the business of ritual Mīmāṃsā, whose first sūtra begins with the words: athāto dharmajijñāsā. Rāmānuja states the same in different words (Śrībhāṣya p. 4 l. 3-4: pūrvavṛttāt karmajñānād anantaraṃ ... brahma jñātavyam). See further Sawai, 1993. That is to say, for these thinkers Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā has to precede Uttara-Mīmāṃsā in the life of a man (even if Bhāskara does not appear to use these precise terms). The fact that we find these terms first in the writings of Rāmānuja and his predecessor Yāmuna suggests that the terms have to be interpreted quite simply as earlier and later Mīmāṃsā in the sense that the study of these two “sciences” were meant to occupy the attention of the thinkers concerned ‘earlier’ respectively ‘later’ in their lives. Renou (1942: 117 [442, 323]) is no doubt right in thinking that “[la prévalence de l'ultériorité] est constante au fond de la notion d'uttara-mīmāṃsā appliquée au Vedānta en tant que spéculation postérieure et supérieure à la fois à la Mīmāṃsā première”, but the claimed link with the grammatical sūtra vipratiṣedhe paraṃ kāryam (P. 1.4.2) is far from evident. It appears that only later these terms came to be used by Advaitins, as in the passage from the Prapañcahṛdaya cited in §1 above. We have already seen that the new argument which Parpola adduces to show that originally the Pūrvamīmāṃsāsūtra and the Brahmasūtra We have already seen (§1) that Parpola, following others, prefers to speak “of a treatise upon the Vedānta, which the [present Brahmasūtra] would have replaced, not without thereby utilizing some of its elements”. About the difference in style between Mīmāṃsāsūtra and Brahmasūtra, see Renou, 1962; on the references in the Brahmasūtra to relatively late developments in Indian philosophy, see Jacobi, 1911: 13 [571] f. were part of one single text is the fact that both quote the same teachers; teacher quotations figure, as a matter of fact, in the subtitle of his articles. Cp. further Parpola, 1981: 165: “The teacher quotations of the PMS and the UMS are important as a proof of the original unity of these two texts ...” After our preceding considerations, it will be clear that this argument, if it is one, is the only one remaining. Let us therefore look at these quotations more closely. Parpola (1981: 155-57) provides an “exhaustive tabulation” which shows “that both texts cite what is in practice an identical selection of named authorities”. The exceptions, Parpola continues, concern a few rarely occurring names only. It can easily be seen from this tabulation that the Brahmasūtra never cites the name of a teacher that is not also cited in the Pūrvamīmāṃsāsūtra (along with the Saṅkarṣakāṇḍa). There is only one exception: the name of Kāśakṛtsna, which only occurs in the Brahmasūtra (1.4.22), but not in the ritual Mīmāṃsāsūtra. It must be admitted that this state of affairs is quite extraordinary. It becomes even more extraordinary if we take into consideration Renou's (1962: 197 [623]) observation to the extent that these cited teachers never express a dissident view in the Brahmasūtra. If taken at its face value, all this implies that the authorities responsable for the development of “Vedāntic” thought were the same as those who developed ritual thought. Parpola (1981: 158) concludes from this that “it is quite clear that both Jaimini and Bādarāyaṇa, as well as the other authorities quoted, were well acquainted with both branches of the Mīmāṃsā, just like the earliest commentators of the unified Mīmāṃsāsūtra”. This conclusion seems reasonable enough, but raises the question which we formulated at the beginning of this article, but this time in a more extreme form: Must we really believe that all those early ritualists — this time not only Jaimini and his early commentators, but also the authorities he quotes — were in their heart of hearts Vedāntins? Moreover, how is it possible that only recognised ritual teachers contributed to Vedāntic thought? What do we know about the early development of Vedāntic thought? Parpola paints the following picture. Having pointed out that there was a “twofold mīmāṃsā” connected with Vedic ritual from the very beginning (1981: 158 ff.), he states with regard to its late-Vedic history (p. 162): “I have no doubt that this twofold mīmāṃsā continued to be practised by the Vedic ritualists even after the Upaniṣadic period right down to the days of the Mīmāṃsāsūtra, although the ceremonial and speculative (or practical and theoretical) sides of this early scholarly activity were henceforth recorded separately, in the Kalpasūtras and in the (later) Upaniṣads.” This picture gives rise to several questions. First of all, whatever may have been the case in early days, at the time of and following the Vedic Upaniṣads Vedāntic thought is not just the theoretical side of ritual activity. This is particularly clear from passages in the Upaniṣads that express themselves critically with regard to the Vedic ritual tradition. Cp. Sarup, 1921: Introduction pp. 71-80 (“Early anti-Vedic scepticism”). There is also the tendency, which manifests itself in late-Vedic texts, to ‘interiorize’ ritual practice, to ‘deritualize’ it. Cp. Bodewitz, 1973: 211-338 (“Agnihotra and Prāṇāgnihotra”). Then there are passages which distinguish those who reach the world of Brahma by reason of a special insight from those who sacrifice and are as a result reborn in this world. ChānUp 5.10; BĀrUp 6.2.15-16. Criticism of Vedic ritualism perhaps finds its culmination in the late-Vedic Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad (still commented upon by Śaṅkara); the following passage illustrates this: MuṇUp 1.2.9-11; text and tr. Olivelle, 1998: 440-41. avidyāyāṃ bahudhā vartamānā, vayaṃ kṛtārthā ity abhimanyanti bālāḥ/ yat karmiṇo na pravedayanti rāgāt, tenāturāḥ kṣīṇalokāś cyavante// iṣṭāpūrtaṃ manyamānā variṣṭaṃ nānyac chreyo vedayante pramūḍhāḥ/ nākasya pṛṣṭhe te sukṛte 'nubhūtvemaṃ lokaṃ hīnataraṃ vā viśanti// tapaḥśraddhe ye hy upavasanty araṇye, śāntā vidvāṃso bhaikṣacaryāṃ carantaḥ/ sūryadvāreṇa te virajāḥ prayānti, yatrāmṛtaḥ sa puruṣo hy avyayātmā// Wallowing in ignorance time and again, the fools imagine, “We have reached our aim!” Because of their passion, they do not understand, these people who are given to rites. Therefore, they fall, wretched and forlorn, when their heavenly stay comes to a close. Deeming sacrifices and gifts as the best, the imbeciles know nothing better. When they have enjoyed their good work, atop the firmament, they return again to this abject world. But those in the wilderness, calm and wise, who live a life of penance and faith, as they beg their food; through the sun's door they go, spotless, to where that immortal Person is, that immutable self. Scepticism with regard to the Vedic sacrifice does not stop with the late-Vedic Upaniṣads. The Bhagavadgītā — in which the supreme Brahma plays an important role, and which refers to its chapters in the colophons as Upaniṣad (Schreiner, 1991: 234) — is a particularly prominent example of such continued criticism, as scholars have repeatedly observed (e.g. Sarup, 1921: 75; Lamotte, 1929: 105; references to Bhag 2.42-46; 9.20-21; 11.48, 53). Peter Schreiner (1991: 142) observes: “Die Tatsache, dass der Text (= Bhagavadgītā) Zitate aus einer Upaniṣad enthält (2.19-20, vgl. Kaṭha-Upaniṣad 2.20 und 2.19 [i.e., 2.19 and 2.18 in Olivelle's edition]) unterstreicht, dass der Text in einer Tradition steht und, so darf man annehmen, sich dieser Tradition bewusst zuordnet.” Critical gāthās and ślokas have been preserved, which have been studied by Paul Horsch (1966: esp. p. 468 ff.). All this shows that it is far from evident that the Upaniṣadic tradition is simply the theoretical part of the practical tradition which led from Vedic ritual to post-Vedic ritual thought (Mīmāṃsā). Texts such as the Mahābhārata — which in its present form is certainly more recent than the early Upaniṣads — demonstrate that the Vedic ritualistic tradition did continue in post-Upaniṣadic times while remaining largely unaffected by ideas about rebirth and liberation. It is true that these issues play an important role in the philosophical parts of this text; in the narrative parts, on the other hand, they are far less common. Indeed, Brockington (1998: 232) refers to the significance of Vedic sacrifice within the Mahābhārata, and observes: “this is clearly a feature which tends to align it more with the Brāhmaṇas than with classical Hinduism”. The concepts of karma and saṃsāra do occasionally appear in the narrative books, beside various other determinants of human destiny (ibid., p. 244 f.), but they do not play the important role which they should be expected to play if we assume that the Vedic tradition had accepted these concepts from the days of the early Upaniṣads onward. Hopkins, citing a passage from the Śāntiparvan, paraphrases (1901: 186): “The priest, orthodox, is recognized as still striving for heaven and likely to go to hell, in the old way.” Cp. Mhbh 12.192.14-15: nirayaṃ naiva yātāsi yatra yātā dvijarṣabhāḥ/ yāsyasi brahmaṇaḥ sthānam animittam aninditam/ There can be no doubt that the Brahmins made fun of in this passage are not Vedāntins in their heart of hearts. Second, if it is true that the speculative (or theoretical) sides of the early scholarly activity which led to Uttaramīmāṃsā was recorded in the (later) Upaniṣads, one might expect to find the names of the authorities cited in the Brahmasūtra in those Upaniṣads. However, none of these cited names occur in the surviving Upaniṣads, as we can learn from Vishva Bandhu's Vedic Word-Concordance (VWC). Most of them do occur in the Kalpasūtras (as shown by Parpola). Do we have to assume that these names occurred in later Upaniṣads that are now lost? or in other pre-Brahmasūtra “Vedāntic” texts that are now lost? The uncomfortable fact is that we have plenty of independent evidence pertaining to the ritualistic activity of the authorities cited in the ritual Mīmāṃsāsūtra, but none whatsoever with regard to their Vedāntic interests. To be more precise, we know from independent sources that the authorities cited in the Brahmasūtra were interested in ritual, but we have not one bit of independent evidence that they were interested in Vedāntic thought and concerns. The above reflections call for another way of looking at the teacher quotations in the Brahmasūtra. We have seen that one branch of later Vedāntic thinkers (Śaṅkara, Maṇḍana Miśra and others) took great pain to show that their discipline is really a form — the best form — of Mīmāṃsā, that they applied the methods and techniques of Mīmāṃsā with even more rigour than the ritualist Mīmāṃsakas. The Brahmasūtra belongs to this branch of Vedāntic thought. As such, the Brahmasūtra had to justify its teachings by invoking the same authorities as the ritual Mīmāṃsāsūtra. Already Renou (1962: 197 [623]) wondered: “Dans quelle mesure ces attributions sont-elles réelles, dans quelle mesure s'agit-il de fictions destinées à rendre un exposé plus vivant?” That is to say, it did not wish to proclaim a different discipline based on the teachings of different authorities, because this would suggest, or even imply, that the Brahmasūtra belonged to a different tradition, just as the teachings of Kapila (Sāṃkhya) and of Gautama (Nyāya) constitute different traditions. By basing itself on the same authorities as the ritual Mīmāṃsāsūtra and using the same exegetical principles, the Brahmasūtra presents itself as teaching the same Mīmāṃsā, only better. Teaching Mīmāṃsā better means, of course, that in the Brahmasūtra due attention is given to the statements about Brahma in the Upaniṣads. This in its turn, the Vedāntic Mīmāṃsakas claim, is a necessary consequence of the correct application of the rules of Mīmāṃsā. This does not necessarily imply that all the references to authorities in the Brahmasūtra are bogus. It is certainly conceivable that early ‘Uttaramīmāṃsakas’ made major efforts to extend the views of ritual authorities so as to make them applicable to Vedāntic thought and procedures, to draw new conclusions out of their old positions. The unfortunate truth is that we have practically no evidence to come to anything approaching certainty in this regard. The wellnigh impossible style of the Brahmasūtra Renou (1962: 202 [628]) characterizes it as follows: “Cette économie aboutit souvent à l'ellipse. Si chez Pāṇini rien d'essentiel n'est omis qui ne puisse se reconstituer par les [sūtra] précédents ou en faisant appel aux adhikāra, ici dans les [Brahmasūtra] il arrive que des mots importants manquent, ceux-là même dont la définition est en cause. Ainsi le mot brahman est omis partout ...”; and again (1961: 197 [553]): “Les [sūtra] du Vedānta ... ont une teneur elliptique qui, le plus souvent, défie la compréhension directe.” Already Thibaut (1890/1896: I: xiii-xiv) complained: “The two Mīmāṃsā-sūtras occupy, however, an altogether exceptional position in point of style. All Sūtras aim at conciseness ... . At the same time the manifest intention of the Sūtra writers is to express themselves with as much clearness as the conciseness affected by them admits of. ... Altogether different is the case of the two Mīmāṃsā-sūtras. There scarcely one single Sūtra is intelligible without a commentary. The most essential words are habitually dispensed with; nothing is, for instance, more common than the simple omission of the subject or predicate of a sentence.” itself — which, as Rüping (1977: 2) points out, may well have been cultivated on purpose Similarly Renou, 1961: 206 [562]: “On est donc conduit à penser que l'auteur des [Brahmasūtra] a cherché à restreindre l'intelligibilité, au-delà même de ce que se permet d'habitude le style en sūtra.”; et Renou, 1942: 122 [444, 328]: “[Les sūtra des deux Mīmāṃsā sont] elliptiques ... et apparemment dédaigneux de faciliter au lecteur l'intelligence du texte. La concision dans les deux Mīmāṃsā, qui conduit à supprimer des éléments essentiels et amoindrit en fait l'intelligibilité ... est aux antipodes de la concision pāṇinéenne, où tout ce qui importe est formulé.” Cp. already Deussen, 1883/1923: 28: “Dieser Thatbestand der Brahma-sûtra's lässt sich weder aus dem Streben nach Kürze, noch aus einer Vorliebe für charakteristische Ausdrucksweise hinlänglich erklären. Vielmehr müssen wir annehmen, dass der oder die Verfasser absichtlich das Dunkle suchten, um ihr die Geheimlehre des Veda behandelndes Werk allen denen unzugänglich zu machen, welchen es nicht durch die Erklärungen eines Lehrers erschlossen wurde.” — prevents us in most cases from being sure that this text itself ascribes Vedāntic positions to these ritual authorities. And yet, a closer look at the positions ascribed to Jaimini in the Brahmasūtra Cp. Kane, 1960: 126 f.; HistDh 5(2), p. 1162 f.; and Taber's contribution to this volume. shows that these ascribed views are often very close to positions known to be held by the ritual Mīmāṃsakas. This may indicate that the Brahmasūtra occasionally mentions the name of Jaimini in order to present a ritual Mīmāṃsā view which it then rejects. The conclusion that Jaimini must have been a Vedāntin of sorts may in that case have to be abandoned. Consider first Brahmasūtra 1.3.31 which mentions the name of Jaimini. The sūtra reads: madhvādiṣv asaṃbhavād anadhikāraṃ jaiminiḥ; it stands out, in comparison with many other sūtras in the same text, by the relative clarity of its formulation. It is yet difficult to determine, on the basis of these words alone, what this sūtra means. If we assume that Śaṅkara was aware of the intention of the sūtra, and that we are therefore entitled to invoke his help, we may then translate: “On account of the impossibility [on the part of the gods to be qualified to knowledge] with regard to honey etc., Jaimini [thinks that the gods] are not qualified [to knowledge of Brahma].” According to the editions of Śaṅkara's commentary, sūtra 1.3.31 is part of the Devatādhikaraṇa, which covers sūtras 1.3.26-33. None of these sūtras, to be sure, contains any indication that this section is concerned with gods or with the qualification to knowledge of Brahma, so it is probably impossible to confirm that Śaṅkara's understanding of sūtra 1.3.31 is correct. The sūtras read: tadupary api bādarayaṇaḥ saṃbhavāt (26); virodhaḥ karmaṇīti cen nānekapratipatter darśanāt (27); śabda iti cen nātaḥ prabhavāt pratyakṣānumānābhyām (28); ata eva ca nityatvam (29); samānanāmarūpatvāc cāvṛttāv apy avirodho darśanāt smṛteś ca (30); madhvādiṣv asaṃbhavād anadhikāraṃ jaiminiḥ (31); jyotiṣi bhāvāc ca (32); bhāvaṃ tu bādarāyaṇo 'sti hi (33). Assuming nonetheless that it is, some interesting observations can be made. We know from Śabara's Bhāṣya on Mīmāṃsāsūtra 6.1.5 that gods are not qualified to perform Vedic rites. The statement from Śabara concerned, na devānāṃ devatāntarābhāvāt, is even cited by Śaṅkara in the beginning of the Devatādhikaraṇa (on Brahmasūtra 1.3.26). Mīmāṃsāsūtra 6.1.5 itself, though rather obscure, can be understood to express the same position. Pūrvamīmāṃsāsūtra 6.1.5 reads: kartur vā śrutisaṃyogād vidhiḥ kārtsnyena gamyate, which Jha (1933: II: 973) translates, or rather paraphrases: “In reality, the injunction of an act should be taken to apply to only such an agent as may be able to carry out the entire details of the act; because such is the sense of the Vedic texts.” The position presumably attributed to Jaimini in Brahmasūtra 1.3.31 may therefore very well be an extension of the view held by the “real” Jaimini, i.e., by the author of Mīmāṃsāsūtra 6.1.5. It certainly is an extension of what Śabara — and perhaps others before him — believed was Jaimini's view. It is less obvious that the reason given in Brahmasūtra 1.3.31 corresponds to anything Jaimini may have ever thought of. According to Śaṅkara, the words madhvādiṣv asaṃbhavād “On account of the impossibility [on the part of the gods to be qualified to knowledge] with regard to honey etc.” refer to Chāndogya Upaniṣad 3.1.1 asau vā ādityo devamadhu “The honey of the gods, clearly, is the sun up there” (tr. Olivelle, 1998: 201). The interpretation which, according to Śaṅkara, Jaimini gives of this statement is that human beings should worship the sun by superimposing the idea of honey on it (manuṣyā ādityaṃ madhvadhyāsenopāsīran). No such interpretation is found in Śaṅkara's commentary on the Chāndogya Upaniṣad. And it is very surprising to find such an interpretation attributed to Jaimini. From the point of view of ritual Mīmāṃsā this is a simple arthavāda. And Śaṅkara himself, under the immediately following sūtra 1.3.32, presents Jaimini's ideas about arthavādas as follows: arthavādā api vidhinaikavākyatvāt stutyarthāḥ santo na pārthagarthyena devādīnāṃ vigrahādisadbhāve kāraṇabhāvaṃ pratipadyante “Arthavādas, too, having as purpose to praise [an activity] on account of the fact that they are to be understood in connection with an injunction, are no independent (pārthagarthyena) grounds for [accepting] that the gods etc. have bodies and so on”. This is indeed the position of ritual Mīmāṃsā, and this same reasoning might be used to refuse drawing conclusions from the statement from the the Chāndogya Upaniṣad on which Jaimini is yet supposed to base his conclusion that the gods are not qualified to knowledge. Jaimini is again mentioned in Brahmasūtra 3.2.40: dharmaṃ jaiminir ata eva. Modi (1943?: 77) translates: “Jaimini [says that the fruit is] Dharma (religious merit), because of this very reason (viz., the support of the Śruti).” Śaṅkara interprets this to mean that in Jaimini's opinion not God (īśvara) but Dharma, or Apūrva, links the sacrificial activity with its result. This agrees with what we know from Śabara's Bhāṣya, and sūtra 3.2.40 may therefore correctly represent Jaimini's opinion without obliging us to conclude that Jaimini was (also) a Vedāntin. Jaimini's mention in Brahmasūtra 4.4.11 (bhāvaṃ jaiminir vikalpāmananāt) Modi (1943?: 441) translates: “Jaimini holds that there is existence of a body in his case, because of the mention in the Śruti of an option regarding the number of bodies of a liberated soul.” is at first sight more problematic, for it concerns — at least in Śaṅkara's interpretation — the question whether a liberated soul still has a body and organs; according to Jaimini, it does. Far from concluding from this sūtra that Jaimini had ideas about the state of liberation, it seems much more prudent to read no more in it than an extension of the ritual Mīmāṃsā idea that sacrificers will remain in possession of body and organs in the state which they strive to attain above all, viz. heaven. Jaimini defends the subordinate nature of knowledge of the self in Brahmasūtra 3.4.2 BraSū 3.4.2: śeṣatvāt puruṣārthavādo yathānyeṣv iti jaiminiḥ. Tr. Modi, 1943?: 242: “‘The name of the aim of human life is applied [to the goal of the Lore of the Upaniṣads] because that knowledge is subsidiary [to the sacrifice] as is the case with other knowledges or othe puruṣārthas’, so says Jaimini.” (in Śaṅkara's interpretation) and the non-injunction of other stages of life (āśrama) in sūtra 3.4.18 BraSū 3.4.18: parāmarśaṃ jaiminir acodanā cāpavadati hi. Modi (1943?: 252) translates: “Jaimini holds the knowledge of Brahman to be a thought; and [he says] ‘It is not of the form of an Injunction, because the Scripture denies all actions [as a help to the realization of Brahman]’.” (again according to Śaṅkara), both times in opposition to Bādarāyaṇa, and both times in agreement with ritual Mīmāṃsā doctrine. Let it here once more be repeated that the obscure formulation of the Brahmasūtra makes any study of its contents extremely difficult. Few would be more qualified than Parpola to study the extent to which the opinions attributed to the various teachers in this text can be looked upon as extensions of what we know about them from elsewhere, but unfortunately his articles almost completely abandon the Brahmasūtra after the challenging initial remarks. The observations about Jaimini presented above are however suggestive. They suggest indeed that Jaimini in the Brahmasūtra, far from being the name of an individual who had outspoken ideas about Vedānta, stands there for a collection of views which agree more or less well with the ritual Mīmāṃsā position. Something similar may be true for the remaining teachers whose names are cited in the Brahmasūtra. Unfortunately this will have to remain a hypothesis as long as the Brahmasūtra remains almost completely unintelligible. The view that the Brahmasūtra made an effort to show itself to be a Mīmāṃsā text that does not in any essential aspect deviate from classical Mīmāṃsā can explain various other features as well. The Brahmasūtra refers on some occasions to Mīmāṃsā rules, which it obviously accepts. Mīmāṃsaka (1987: Intr. p. 7) illustrates this with a number of examples, See further Subrahmanya Sastri, 1961: Bhūmikā p. 2 f.; Renou, 1962: 195 [621] n. 2. but points out that no borrowing of rules has taken place in the opposite direction, from Brahmasūtra to ritual Mīmāṃsāsūtra. He concludes from this that the names Pūrvamīmāṃsā and Uttaramīmāṃsā are appropriate, no doubt in the meanings of earlier and later Mīmāṃsā respectively. Whatever one thinks of this interpretation (which differs widely from the one proposed by Parpola), it is clear that Uttaramīmāṃsā was influenced by and followed the example of Pūrvamīmāṃsā, but not vice-versa. This of course agrees with our suggestion that the thinkers of Uttaramīmāṃsā went out of their way to show their teaching to be an improved version of ritual Mīmāṃsā. The extensive use made by Śaṅkara of Mīmāṃsā principles (Devasthali, 1952; Moghe, 1984) points in the same direction. Seen in the way here suggested the Brahmasūtra and its early commentaries are the embodiment of the attempt to lend the respectibility of serious Vedic interpretation to the speculations about Brahma which had continued without interruption since Upaniṣadic times. Such respectibility so far only belonged to the (Pūrva-)Mīmāṃsā. By basing all their doctrines on properly interpreted Upaniṣadic statements, the speculations about Brahma became a form of Mīmāṃsā, even a better form of Mīmāṃsā than the ritualistic one. Some traces of non-mīmāṃsic Vedāntic thought have however survived, allowing us to see that post-Vedic Vedāntic philosophy had not always been a form of Mīmāṃsā (e.g., Uttaramīmāṃsā, Śārīraka Mīmāṃsā, etc.). §6. Conclusions It will be clear from the preceding reflections that Uttaramīmāṃsā, far from being part of original Mīmāṃsā, attached itself at some time to it in order to provide speculations about Brahma with the solid underpinning of serious Vedic interpretation. Speculations about Brahma, more or less continuing the ideas found in the Vedic Upaniṣads, had been around probably without interruption since Upaniṣadic times. They had not always profited from the sophisticated instruments of Vedic interpretation that had been developed in Mīmāṃsā for the sake of Vedic ritual. Using these instruments to solidly ancre Vedāntic ideas into the eternal Veda was an aim that gave rise to a new — or perhaps better: supplementary — school of Vedic interpretation: the Uttaramīmāṃsā. This way of looking at the historical origins of Uttaramīmāṃsā does away with the need to believe that the early ritual Mīmāṃsakas — Śabara, but also Jaimini, and even the authorities cited in the Sūtra — were really convinced Vedāntins, who believed in liberation from this world as a possibility beside and above the rewards offered for Vedic ritual practice. It is no longer necessary to think that Śabara, in spite of showing no awareness whatsoever of the notion of liberation in his massive commentary on the Mīmāṃsā Sūtra, yet was familiar with it and may therefore himself have hoped to attain liberation one day. We can now stick to the far simpler and far more plausible position that Śabara — and Jaimini, and all those they cite — never mention liberation because they did not believe in it. They did not believe in it because there was no place for liberation in their vision of the world which was in this respect still rather close to, and continued, the Vedic ritualistic world view. This in its turn constitutes evidence that Vedic Brahmins had not, from the time of the Upaniṣads onward, embraced the new ideas of karmic retribution and liberation. Far from it, the most conservative among them continued to resist these ideas for at least one thousand years, from the time of the early Upaniṣads until that of Śabara and Prabhākara. We can now also understand how later ritual Mīmāṃsakas — prominent among them Kumārila Bhaṭṭa — could no longer resist the lure of the notion of liberation and yielded to it without becoming Vedāntins. From the point of view of ritual Mīmāṃsā the two Mīmāṃsās were not fundamentally one, and had never been one. Vedānta had attached itself to the older school of Vedic interpretation, claiming that it had always been part of it; that ritual Mīmāṃsā had never been complete without it. The ritual Mīmāṃsakas knew better, and historically speaking they were right. References: Ādiśeṣa: Paramārthasāra. See under Danielson, 1980. Alston, A. J. (tr.)(1959): The Realization of the Absolute. The “Naiṣkarmya Siddhi” of Śrī Sureśvara. Second edition: Shanti Sadan, London, 1971. Alston, A. J. (1980): Śaṃkara on the Absolute. London: Shanti Sadan. (A Śaṃkara Source-Book, I.) Alston, A. J. (1980a): Śaṃkara on the Creation. London: Shanti Sadan. (A Śaṃkara Source-Book, II.) Alston, A. J. (1981): Śaṃkara on the Soul. London: Shanti Sadan. (A Śaṃkara Source-Book, III.) Alston, A. J. (1989): Śaṃkara on Rival Views. London: Shanti Sadan. (A Śaṃkara Source-Book, IV.) Alston, A. J. (1989a): Śaṃkara on Discipleship. London: Shanti Sadan. (A Śaṃkara Source-Book, V.) Alston, A. J. (1989b): Śaṃkara on Enlightenment. London: Shanti Sadan. (A Śaṃkara Source-Book, VI.) Ānandagiri: Nyāyanirṇaya. See under Śaṅkara: Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya. Bader, Jonathan (1990): Meditation in Śaṅkara's Vedānta. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Belvalkar, Shripad Krishna (1927): “Jaimini's Śārīraka-sūtra.” Aus Indiens Kultur. Festgabe Richard von Garbe. Erlangen: Verlag vom Palm & Enke. Pp. 163-170. Bhadkamkar, H.M., assisted by R.G. Bhadkamkar (ed.)(1918): The Nirukta of Yāska (with Nighaṇṭu), edited with Durga's commentary. Vol. I. Reprint: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, 1985. (Bombay Sanskrit and Prakrit Series, no. LXXIII.) Bhāskara: Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya. In: Brahmasūtrabhāṣyam Bhāskarācārya viracitam. Brahmasūtra with a commentary by Bhâskarâchârya. Ed. by Vindhyeshavari Prasâda Dvivedin. Benares 1915. (Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series 70, 185, 209.) Reprint: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, Varanasi, 1991 (Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series, 20). Biardeau, Madeleine (1964): Théorie de la connaissance et philosophie de la parole dans le brahmanisme classique. Paris, La Haye: Mouton. (Le Monde d'Outre-mer Passé et Présent, première série, études, 23.) Biardeau, Madeleine (1968): “L'ātman dans le commentaire de Śabarasvāmin.” Mélanges d'Indianisme à la Mémoire de Louis Renou. Paris: E. de Boccard. Pp. 109-125. Biardeau, Madeleine (1969): La philosophie de Maṇḍana Miśra, vue à partir de la Brahmasiddhi. Paris: École Française d'Extrême-Orient. (Publications de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient, 76.) Bodewitz, H.W. (1973): Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa I, 1-65. Translation and commentary, with a study Agnohotra and Prāṇāgnihotra. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Bouy, Christian (2000): Gauḍapāda, l'Āgamaśāstra. Un traité vedāntique en quatre chapitres. Texte, traduction et notes. Paris: Édition-Diffusion de Boccard. (Collège de France, Publications de l'Institut de Civilisation Indienne, Série in-8°, Fascicule 69.) Brockington, John (1998): The Sanskrit Epics. Leiden etc,: E.J. Brill. (Handbuch der Orientalistik, Abt. Indien, 12.) Bronkhorst, Johannes (1989): “Studies on Bhartṛhari, 2: Bhartṛhari and Mīmāṃsā.” Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 15 (1989), 101-117. Reprint in: Studies in Mīmāṃsā. Dr. Mandan Mishra Felicitation Volume. Ed. R.C. Dwivedi. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. 1994. Pp. 371-388. Bronkhorst, Johannes (1991): Review of Wood, 1990. Asiatische Studien / Études Asiatiques 45(2), 324-333. Bronkhorst, Johannes (1991a): “Studies on Bhartṛhari, 3: Bhartṛhari on sphoṭa and universals.” Asiatische Studien / Études Asiatiques 45(1), 5-18. Bronkhorst, Johannes (1997): “Philosophy and Vedic exegesis in the Mīmāṃsā.” In: Beyond Orientalism: The Work of Wilhelm Halbfass and its Impact on Indian and Cross-Cultural Studies. Ed. Eli Franco and Karin Preisendanz. Amsterdam - Atlanta: Rodopi. (Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities vol. 59.) Pp. 359-371. Bronkhorst, Johannes (1998): “Bhartṛhari (c. 5th century).” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig. London and New York: Routledge. Volume 1, pp. 764-766. Bronkhorst, Johannes (1999): Langage et réalité: sur un épisode de la pensée indienne. Turnhout: Brepols. (Bibliothèque de l'École des Hautes Études, Sciences Religieuses, 105.) Bronkhorst, Johannes (2000): Karma and Teleology. A problem and its solutions in Indian philosophy. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies. 2000. (Studia Philologica, Monograph Series, XV.) Bronkhorst, Johannes (2001): "Pour comprendre la philosophie indienne." La rationalité en Asie / Rationality in Asia. Ed. Johannes Bronkhorst. = Études de Lettres (Lausanne) 2001(3), 195-221. Bronkhorst, Johannes (2002): “Yāska and the sentence: the beginning of śābdabodha?” Subhāṣiṇī: Dr. Saroja Bhate Felicitation Volume. Ed. G. U. Thite. Pune: Prof. Dr. Saroja Bhate Felicitation Committee (c/o Dr. Malhar Kulkarni). Pp. 44-62. Bronkhorst, Johannes (2003): Review of Yuktidīpikā. The Most Significant Commentary on the Sāṃkhyakārikā, critically edited by Albrecht Wezler and Shujun Motegi, vol. I. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 153(1), 242-247. Bronkhorst, Johannes (2007): “On the nature of pradhāna.” Expanding and Merging Horizons. Contributions to South Asian and Cross-Cultural Studies in Commemoration of Wilhelm Halbfass. Ed. Karin Preisendanz. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press. (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse, Denkschriften, 351. Band; Beiträge zur Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte Asiens Nr. 53.) Pp. 373-381. Bronkhorst, Johannes (2007a): “Echoes of Ājīvikism in medieval Indian philosophy.” Theatrum Mirabiliorum Indiae Orientalis. A volume to celebrate the 70th birthday of Professor Maria Krzysztof Byrski. Ed. Monika Nowakowska & Jacek Woπniak. Warszawa: Komitet Nauk Orientalistycznych Polskeij Akademii Nauk. (Rocznik Orientalistyczny 60, 2.) Pp. 239-248. Bronkhorst, Johannes (forthcoming): “Bhartṛhari and his Vedic tradition.” Paper read at the International Seminar on Language, Thought and Reality in Bhartṛhari on the occasion of the Centennial Year of MLBD. New Delhi, 12-14 December 2003. Brückner, Heidrun (1979): Zum Beweisverfahren Śaṃkaras. Eine Untersuchung der Form und Funktion von dṛṣṭāntas im Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣadbhāṣya und im Chāndogyopaniṣadbhāṣya des Śaṃkara Bhagavatpāda. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. (Marburger Studien zur Afrika- und Asienkunde, Serie B: Asien, Band 5.) Chenet, François (1998, 1999): Psychogenèse et cosmogonie selon le Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha: «Le monde est dans l'âme». 2 vols. Paris: Édition-Diffusion de Boccard. (Collège de France, Publications de l'Institut de Civilisation Indienne, Série in-8°, Fascicule 67.) Clooney, Francis X. (1990): Thinking Ritually. Rediscovering the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā of Jaimini. Vienna. (Publications of the De Nobili Research Library, 17.) Colas, Gérard (1996): Viṣṇu, ses images et ses feux. Les métamorphoses du dieu chez les vaikhānasa. Paris: Presses de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient. (Monographies, 182.) Comans, Michael (2000): The Method of Early Advaita Vedānta. A study of Gauḍapāda, Śaṅkara, Sureśvara, and Padmapāda. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Danielson, Henry (1980): Ādiśeṣa, the Essence of Supreme Truth (Paramārthasāra). Sanskrit text with translation and notes. Leiden: E. J. Brill. (Religious texts translation series NISABA, 10.) Deussen, Paul (1883/1923): Das System des Vedānta. Vierte Auflage. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus. Deussen, Paul (1887): Die Sûtra's des Vedânta oder die Çârîraka-Mîmâṅsâ des Bâdarâyaṇa nebst dem vollständigen Commentare des Çañkara aus dem Sanskrit übersetzt. Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus. Reprint: Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim - New York. Devasthali, G.V. (1952): “Śaṅkarācārya's indebtedness to Mīmāṃsā.” Journal of the Oriental Institute (Baroda) 1, 23-30. Divanji, P.C. (1940): “Gauḍapāda's asparśayoga and Śaṃkara's jñānavāda.” Poona Orientalist 4(4), 149-158. Doniger, Wendy, with Brian K. Smith (tr.)(1991): The Laws of Manu. Harmondsworth: Penguin. D'Sa, Francis X. (1985): Word-Index to Śaṅkara's Gītābhāṣya. Pune: Institute for the Study of Religion. (Linguistic Aids for the Study of Indian Religious Texts, 1.) Frauwallner, Erich (1968): Materialien zur ältesten Erkenntnislehre der Karmamīmāṃsā. Wien. (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, 259. Band, 2. Abhandlung; Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Sprachen und Kulturen Süd- und Ostasiens, Heft 6.) Frauwallner, Erich (1992): Nachgelassene Werke II: Philosophische Texte des Hinduismus. Hrsg. Gerhard Oberhammer und Chlodwig H. Werba. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, 588. Band; Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Sprachen und Kulturen Südasiens Nr. 26.) Gambhirananda, Swami (tr.)(1972): Brahma-Sūtra-Bhāṣya of Śrī Śaṅkarācārya. Second edition. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama. Gonda, Jan (1985): Les religions de l'Inde, II: L'hindouisme récent. Traduit de l'allemand par L. Jospin. Paris: Payot. (French translation of: Die Religionen Indiens, II: Der jüngere Hinduismus, W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, 1963.) Govindānanda: Bhāṣyaratnaprabhā. See under Śaṅkara: Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya. Hacker, Paul (1947): “Śaṅkarācārya and Śaṅkarabhagavatpāda. Preliminary remarks concerning the authorship problem.” New Indian Antiquary 9, 175-186. Corrected version in Kleine Schriften, ed. Lambert Schmithausen, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1978, pp. 41-58 (Reprinted: Halbfass, 1995: 41-56). (References are to the corrected version in Kleine Schriften.) Hacker, Paul (1949): Upadeśasāhasrī, Unterweisung in der All-Einheits-Lehre der Inder von Meister Shankara, Gadyaprabandha oder das Buch in Prosa, aus dem Sanskrit übersetzt und erläutert. Bonn: Ludwig Röhrscheid. Hacker, Paul (1951): Untersuchungen über Texte des frühen Advaitavāda. 1. Die Schüler Śaṅkaras. Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur; in Kommission bei Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden. (AAWL, Jhr 1950, Nr. 26.) Hacker, Paul (1953): Vivarta. Studien zur Geschichte der illusionistischen Kosmologie un Erkenntnistheorie der Inder. Wiesbaden: Kommission Franz Steiner. (Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz, Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Klasse, Jahrgang 1953, Nr. 5.) Hacker, Paul (1968): “Śaṅkara der Yogin und Śaṅkara der Advaitin: einige Beobachtungen.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Süd- und Ostasiens 12-13 (1968-69; Beiträge zur Geistesgeschichte Indiens, Festschrift für Erich Frauwallner), 119-148. Reprint: Kleine Schriften, ed. Lambert Schmithausen, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1978, pp. 213-242. (English translation: Halbfass, 1995: 101-134.) Halbfass, Wilhelm (1980): "Karma, apūrva, and ‘natural’ causes: observations on the growths and limits of the theory of saṃsāra." Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions. Ed. Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty. Berkeley - Los Angeles - London: University of California Press. Pp. 268-302. Halbfass, Wilhelm (1983): Studies in Kumārila and Śaṅkara. Reinbek: Inge Wezler. (Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik, Monographie 9.) Halbfass, Wilhelm (1991): Tradition and Reflection. Explorations in Indian thought. Albany: State University of New York Press. Halbfass, Wilhelm (1995): Philology and Confrontation. Paul Hacker on traditional and modern Vedānta. Albany: State University of New York Press. Hanneder, J. (2003): Review of Bouy, 2000. Indo-Iranian Journal 46(2), 161-165. Heesterman, J. C. (2003): “Opfer, Transzendenz und Dharma in der Sicht der Mīmāṃsā.” In: Mythisierung der Transzendenz als Entwurf ihrer Erfahrung. Hrsg. Gerhard Oberhammer & Marcus Schmücker. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, 706. Band; Beiträge zur Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte Asiens, Nr. 41.) Pp. 281-298. Hiriyanna, J. (1925). See under Sureśvara: Naiṣkarmyasiddhi. Hohenberger, A. (tr.)(1964): Rāmānuja's Vedāntadīpa. Seine Kurzauslegung der Brahmasūtren des Bādarāyaṇa. Bonn: Selbstverlag des Orientalischen Seminars der Universität. (Bonner Orientalistische Studien, N.S. 14.) Honda, Megumu (1993): “Index to the Ślokavārttika.” DØhØ Daigaku KiyØ 7, 148-33 (= (1)-(116)). Hopkins, E. Washburn (1901): The Great Epic of India. Its character and origin. Reprint: Punthi Pustak, Calcutta, 1978. Horsch, Paul (1966): Die vedische Gāthā- und Śloka-Literatur. Bern: Francke. Houben, Jan E. M. (1995): The Saṃbandha-Samuddeśa (chapter on relation) and Bhartṛhari's Philosophy of Language. Groningen: Egbert Forsten. (Gonda Indological Studies, 2.) Hulin, Michel (2001): Śaṅkara et la non-dualité. Paris: Bayard. Ingalls, Daniel H. H. (1952): “The study of Śaṃkarācārya.” Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 33, 1-14. Ingalls, Daniel H. H. (1954): “Śaṃkara's arguments against the Buddhists.” Philosophy East and West 3, 291-306. Isayeva, Natalia (1993): Shankara and Indian Philosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press. Jacobi, Hermann (1911): “The dates of the philosophical Sūtras of the Brahmans.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 31, 1-29 (= KlSchr (1970) II, 559-587). Jha, Ganganath (ed., tr.)(1920-39): Manusmṛti, with the ‘Manubhāṣya’ of Medhātithi. 10 vols. Second edition: Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1999. Jha, Ganganatha (tr.)(1933): Śābara-Bhāṣya. 3 vols. Reprint: Oriental Institute, Baroda, 1973-1974. Johnston, E.H. (1936): Aśvaghoṣa's Buddhacarita or Acts of the Buddha. Sanskrit text of Cantos I-XIV with English translation of Cantos I-XXVIII. New enlarged edition: Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi etc. 1984. Kahrs, Eivind (1986): "Durga on bhāva." Kalyāṇamitrārāgaṇam. Essays in Honour of Nils Simonsson. Ed. Eivind Kahrs. Oslo: Norwegian University Press / The Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. Series B: Skrifter 70. Pp. 115-144. Kane, P. V. (1960): “Pūrvamīmāṃsāsūtra, Brahmasūtra, Jaimini, Vyāsa and Bādarāyaṇa.” Bulletin of the Deccan College Research Institute 20(1-4), 119-139. Kashikar, C. G. (1964): The Śrauta, Paitṛmedhika and Pariśeṣa Sūtras of Bharadvāja, critically edited and translated. Part I. Poona: Vaidika Saṃśodhana Maṇḍala. (I p. lxvii-lxxvi: all references to Āśmarathya and Ālekhana) Keith, A. Berriedale (1920 (?; the preface is signed 1928)): A History of Sanskrit Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. King, Richard (1992): “Asparśa-yoga: meditation and epistemology in the Gauḍapādīya-kārikā.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 20, 89-131. King, Richard (1995): “Early Advaita Vedānta: the date and authorship of the Gauḍapādīyakārikā.” Indo-Iranian Journal 38, 317-355. Krishna, Daya (2001): New Perspectives in Indian Philosophy. Jaipur and New Delhi: Rawat Publications. Kullūka Bhaṭṭa: Manvartha-Muktāvalī. For the edition see Manusmṛti. Kunjunni Raja, K. (1960): “On the date of Śaṃkarācārya and allied problems.” Adyar Library Bulletin 24(3-4), 125-148. Lamotte, Étienne (1929): Notes sur la Bhagavadgītā. Paris: Paul Geuthner. Lindtner, Christian (1999): “Bhavya on Mīmāṃsā, Mīmāṃsātattvanirṇayāvatāraḥ, with English translation.” Adyar Library Bulletin 1999, 245-302. Lindtner, Chr. (ed.)(2001): Madhyamakahṛdayam of Bhavya. Adyar, Chennai: The Adyar Library and Research Centre, The Theosophical Society. Madhusūdana Sarasvatī: Vedāntakalpalatikā. Edited, with an introduction, English translation and appendices, by R. D. Karmarkar. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. 1962. Mahadevan, T. M. P. (1952): Gauḍapāda: A study in Early Advaita. Madras: University of Madras. Mahadevan, T. M. P. (ed.)(1971, 1973): Word Index to the Brahma-Sūtra-Bhāṣya of Śaṅkara. 2 vols. Madras: Centre of Advanced Study in Philosophy, University of Madras. (Madras University Philosophical Series, 17.) Maṇḍana Miśra: Brahmasiddhi. Ed. S. Kuppuswami Sastri. First published: Madras 1937. Second edition: Sri Satguru, Delhi, 1984. Manusmṛti, with the Sanskrit commentary Manvartha-Muktāvalī of Kullūka Bhaṭṭa. Ed. J. L. Shastri. Delhi etc.: Motilal Banarsidass. 1983. Matsumoto, Shokei (2003): A Study of Rāmānuja's Vedārthasaṃgrahaḥ. I: Sanskrit text; II: Japanese translation; III: Studies. Chiba-ken: Naritasan Shinshoji. (Acta Indologica, 8.) Maximilien, Guy (1975): Sureśvara, La démonstration du non-agir (Naiṣkarmyasiddhi). Introduction et traduction. Paris: Institut de civilisation indienne / E. de Boccard. (Publications de l'Institut de Civilisation Indienne, série in-8°, fascicule 37.) Mayeda, Sengaku (1965): “The authenticity of the Upadeśasāhasrī ascribed to Śaṅkara.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 85, 178-196. Mayeda, Sengaku (1965a): “The authenticity of the Bhagavadgītābhāṣya ascribed to Śaṅkara.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Süd- und Ostasiens 9, 155-197. Mayeda, Sengaku (1968): “On the author of the Māṇḍūkyopaniṣad- and the Gauḍapādīya-bhāṣya.” Adyar Library Bulletin 31-32 (1967-68; V. Raghavan Felicitation Volume), 73-94. Mayeda, Sengaku (1968a): “The advaita theory of perception.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Süd- und Ostasiens 12-13 (1968-69; Festschrift für Erich Frauwallner), 221-239. Mayeda, Sengaku (ed.)(1973): Śaṅkara's Upadeśasāhasrī, critically edited with introduction and indices. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. Mayeda, Sengaku (1979): A Thousand Teachings. The Upadeśasāhasrī of Śaṅkara. Reprint: State University of New York Press, Albany, 1992. Medhātithi: Manubhāṣya. For the edition, see Jha, 1920-39. Mesquita, Roque (1971): Das Problem der Gotteserkenntnis bei Yāmunamuni. Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades an der philosophischen Fakultät der Universität Wien. Wien. Mesquita, Roque (1973): “Yāmunamuni: Leben, Datierung und Werke.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 17, 177-193. Mesquita, Roque (1974): “Recent research on Yāmuna.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 18, 183-208. Mesquita, Roque (1979): “Zur Vedānta- und Pāñcarātra-Tradition Nāthamunis.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 23, 163-193. Mesquita, Roque (1980): “Yāmuna's Vedānta and Pāñcarātra: a review.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 24, 199-224. Mesquita, Roque (1984): “Rāmānujas Quellen im Mahāpūrvapakṣa und Mahāsiddhānta des Śrībhāṣya.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 28, 179-222. Mesquita, Roque (1988): Yāmunācāryas Saṃvitsiddhi: Kritische Edition, Übersetzung und Anmerkungen. Mit einem Rekonstruktionsversuch der verlorenen Abschnitte. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, 504. Band; Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Sprachen und Kulturen Südasiens, Heft 21.) Mesquita, Roque (1990): Yāmunācāryas Philosophie der Erkenntnis: Eine Studie zu seiner Saṃvitsiddhi. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, 563. Band; Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Sprachen und Kulturen Südasiens, Heft 24.) Mesquita, Roque (1994): “Die Idee der Erlösung bei Kumārilabhaṭṭa.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 38 (Festschrift Oberhammer), 451-484. Mīmāṃsaka, Yudhiṣṭhira (1987): Mīmāṃsā-Śābara-Bhāṣya [prathamo bhāgaḥ], śāstrāvatāra-vedaśrutyāmnāyasaṃjñāmīmāṃsā-śrautayajñamīmāṃsā''khyais tribhir nibandhair yuktaḥ, vividhaprakārakaiṣ ṭippaṇībhir vividhapariśiṣṭaiś ca samalaṃkṛtaḥ. Bahālagaḍha: Ramlal Kapur Trust. Mīmāṃsākoṣa. Edited by Kevalānandasaraswatī. 7 vols. Wai: Prajna Pathashala Mandal. 1952-1966. Modi, P. M. (1943?): A Critique of the Brahmasūtra (III.2.11—IV). (With special reference to Śaṅkarācārya's commentary.) Pt. 1: Interpretation of the sūtras (III.2.11—IV). Bhavnagar n.d. Moghe, S.G. (1984): “Śaṅkarācārya and Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā.” Studies in the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā. Delhi: Ajanta Publications. Pp. 1-13. Murty, K. Satchidananda (1959): Revelation and Reason in Advaita Vedānta. London: Asia Publishing House; Waltair: Andhra University; New York: Columbia University Press. Reprint 1961. Nakamura, Hajime (1995): “Upaniṣadic tradition and the early school of Vedānta as noticed in Buddhist scripture.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 18, 74-104. Nakamura, Hajime (1983): A History of Early Vedānta Philosophy. Translated into English by Trevor Leggett et al. Part One. Delhi etc.: Motilal Banarsidass. (Religions of Asia Series, 1.) Neevel, Walter G. (1977): Yāmuna's Vedānta and Pāñcarātra: Integrating the classical and the popular. Missoula, Montana: Scholars Press. (Harvard Theological Review, Harvard Dissertations in Religion, 10.) Nicholson, Hugh (2003): “Apologetics and philosophy in Maṇḍana Miśra's Brahmasiddhi.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 30 (2002), 575-596. Oberhammer, Gerhard (1971): Yāmunamunis Interpretation von Brahmasūtram 2, 2, 42-45. Eine Untersuchung zur Pāñcarātra-Tradition der Rāmānuja-Schule. Wien: Hermann Böhlaus. (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, 274. Band, 4. Abhandlung; Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Sprachen und Kulturen Südasiens, Heft 10.) Oberhammer, Gerhard (1997): Materialien zur Geschichte der Rāmānuja-Schule, III: Yādavaprakāśa, der vergessene Lehrer Rāmānujas. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, 646. Band; Veröffentlichungen zu den Sprachen und Kulturen Südasiens, Heft 29.) Olivelle, Patrick (1992): Saṃnyāsa Upaniṣads. Hindu scriptures on asceticism and renunciation. New York - Oxford: Oxford University Press. Olivelle, Patrick (1998): The Early Upaniṣads. Annotated text and translation. New York - Oxford: Oxford University Press. Padmapāda: Pañcapādika. 1) In: Śrī Padmapādācārya's Pañcapādikā, with the commentaries Vivaraṇa by Śrī Prakāśātmamuni, Tattvadīpana by Śrī Akhaṇḍānanda Muni and Ṛjuvivaraṇa by Śrī Viṣṇubhaṭṭopādhyāya, edited by Paṇḍitrājā Śāstraratnākara S. Subrahmanyaśāstri. Mount Abu and Varanasi: Mahesh Research Institute. 1992. (Advaita Grantha Ratna Manjusha: Ratna 33.) 2) In: Pañcapādikā of Śrī Padmapādācārya, with Prabodhapariśodhinī of Ātmasvarūpa and Tātparyārthadyotinī of Vijñānātman and Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa of Śrī Prakāśātman with Tātparyadīpikā of Citsukhācārya and Bhāvaprakāśikā of Nṛsiṃhāśrama, edited by S. Śrīrāma Śāstrī and S.R. Krishnamurthi Śāstrī. Madras: Government Oriental Manuscripts Library. 1958. For and English translation see Venkataramiah, 1948. Pande, Govind Chandra (1994): Life and Thought of Śaṅkarācārya. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Pansikar, Vasudeva Laxmana Sharma (ed.)(1918): The Yogavāsiṣṭha of Valmīki, with the commentary Vāsiṣṭhamahārāmāyaṇatātparyaprakāśa. Two Parts. Reprint of the Third Edition, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1984. Parpola, Asko (1981): “On the formation of the Mīmāṃsā and the problems concerning Jaimini, with particular reference to the teacher quotations and the Vedic schools.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 25: 145-177. Parpola, Asko (1994): “On the formation of the Mīmāṃsā and the problems concerning Jaimini, with particular reference to the teacher quotations and the Vedic schools (Part II).” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 38: 293-308. Prapañcahṛdaya. In: Prapañca-hṛdayam tathā Prasthāna-bhedaḥ. Ed. Yudhiṣṭhira Mīmāṃsaka. Bahālagaḍha: Rāmalāla Kapūra Trust. 1987. (Page numbers in brackets refer to the first edition of this text by T. Ganapati Sastri, Trivandrum Sanskrit Series 45, 1915.) Qvarnström, Olle (1989): Hindu Philosophy in Buddhist Perspective. The Vedāntatattvaviniścaya chapter of Bhavya's Madhyamakahṛdayakārikā. Lund: Plus Ultra. (Lund Studies in African and Asian Religions, 4.) Qvarnström, Olle (2003): “Early Vedānta philosophy preserved by the Jain tradition: The Vedavādadvātriṃśikā of Siddhasena Divākara.” Jainism and Early Buddhism: Essays in Honor of Padmanabh S. Jaini. Ed. Olle Qvarnström. Fremont, California: Asian Humanities Press. Pp. 575-593. Raghavan, V. (1967): “The Upadeśasāhasrī of Śaṃkarācārya and the mutual chronology of Śaṃkarācārya and Bhāskara.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Süd- und Ostasiens 11, 137-140 Rājavāḍe, Vaijanātha Kāśīnātha (ed.)(1921): Durgācāryakṛtavṛttisametam Niruktam. Pūrvaṣaṭkātmakaḥ prathamo bhāgaḥ. Poona: Ānandāśrama. (Ānandāśramasaṃskṛtagranthāvali, no. 88.) Ramachandrudu, P. (1989): “Śaṅkara and Pūrvamīmāṃsā.” Perspectives of Śaṅkara. Rashtriya Śaṅkara Jayanti Mahotsava Commemoration Volume. Ed. R. Balasubramanian and Sibajiban Bhattacharyya. Government of India: Department of Culture, Ministry of Human Resource Development. Pp. 233-240. Rāmānuja: Śrībhāṣya. Ed. N.S. Ramabhadracharya. Vol. I. Melkote: The Academy of Sanskrit Research. 1985. (The Academy of Sanskrit Research Series, 4.) Rāmānuja: Vedārthasaṃgraha. See under van Buitenen, 1956. Rāmānuja: Vedāntadīpa. In: Vedāntadeepa. A gloss on Brahmasūtras by Rāmānujāchārya ed. by Bhattanāthaswāmi. Benares 1904. (Benares Sanskrit Series 69, 70 and 80.) Rambachan, Anantanand (1991): Accomplishing the Accomplished. The Vedas as a source of valid knowledge in Śaṅkara. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy, Monograph no. 10.) Rambachan, Anantanand (1997): “Where words can set free. The liberating potency of Vedic words in the hermeneutics of Śaṅkara.” Texts in Context. Traditional Hermeneutics in South Asia. Ed. Jeffrey R. Timm. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications. Pp. 33-46. Renou, Louis (1942): “Les connexions entre le rituel et la grammaire en sanskrit.” Journal Asiatique 233 (1941-42), 105-165. Reprints: Staal, 1972: 435-469; Renou, 1997, I: 311-371. Renou, Louis (1957): “Grammaire et Vedānta.” Journal Asiatique 245, 121-133. (= Staal, 1972: 470-478; Renou, 1997: I: 407-419.) Renou, Louis (1961): “Sur la forme de quelques textes sanskrits.” Journal Asiatique 249, 163-211. (= Renou, 1997: II: 519-567.) Renou, Louis (1962): “Sur la forme des Brahmasūtra.” Indological Studies in Honor of W. Norman Brown. Ed. Ernest Bender. New Haven, Connecticut: American Oriental Society. (American Oriental Series, 47.) Pp. 195-203. (= Renou, 1997: II: 621-629.) Renou, Louis (1997): Choix d'études indiennes. Réunies par Nalini Balbir et Georges-Jean Pinault. Paris: Presses de l'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient. (Réimpressions, n° 9.) 2 vols. Rüping, Klaus (1977): Studien zur Frühgeschichte der Vedānta-Philosophie. Teil I: Philologische Untersuchungen zu den Brahmasūtra-Kommentaren des Śaṅkara und des Bhāskara. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. (Alt- und Neu-Indische Studien, 17.) Śaṅkara: Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya. Editions used: 1) Brahmasūtra-Śāṅkarabhāṣyam, edited, with the commentaries Bhāṣyaratnaprabhā of Govindānanda, Bhāmatī of Vācaspati, Nyāyanirṇaya of Ānandagiri, by J. L. Shastri. Reprint: Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1996. 2) Brahmasūtra with Śāṅkarabhāṣya. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. 1964. (Works of Śaṅkarācārya in original Sanskrit, vol. III.) Śaṅkara: Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad Bhāṣya, Chāndogyopaniṣad Bhāṣya, Taittirīyopaniṣad Bhāṣya. In: Ten Principal Upanishads with Śāṅkarabhāṣya. Delhi etc.: Motilal Banarsidass. 1964. (Works of Śaṅkarācārya in original Sanskrit, vol. I.) Sarup, Lakshman (1921): The Nighaṇṭu and the Nirukta. Introduction, English translation and notes. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. 1966. Satchidanandendra Sarasvati, Swami (1989): The Method of the Vedanta. A critical account of the advaita tradition. Transl. A. J. Alston. London and New York: Kegan Paul International. Sawai, Yoshitsugu (1986): “Śaṅkara's theory of saṃnyāsa.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 14, 371-387. Sawai, Yoshitsugu (1993): “Rāmānuja's theory of karman.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 21, 11-29. Sāyaṇa: Ṛgveda Bhāṣya. In: Ṛgveda-Saṃhitā with the commentary of Sāyaṇācārya. Vol. I. Ed. V.K. Rājawade et al. Second edition: Tilaka Mahārāṣṭra Vidyāpīṭha, Vaidika Saṃśodhana Maṇḍala, Poona. 1972. Schreiner, Peter (1991): Bhagavad-Gita: Wege und Weisungen. Übersetzt und eingeleitet. Zürich: Benziger. Sharma, B. N. K. (1971): The Brahmasūtras and their Principal Commentaries (a critical exposition). Volume I. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. (Bharatiya Vidya Series, 28.) Sharma, B. N. K. (1974): The Brahmasūtras and their Principal Commentaries (a critical exposition). Volume II. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. (Bharatiya Vidya Series, 31.) Sharma, B. N. K. (1978): The Brahmasūtras and their Principal Commentaries (a critical exposition). Volume III. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. (Bharatiya Vidya Series, 36.) Sharma, B. N. K. (1981): History of the Dvaita School of Vedānta and its Literature. 2nd revised edition. Delhi etc.: Motilal Banarsidass. Sheridan, Daniel P. (1986): The Advaitic Theism of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. Delhi etc.: Motilal Banarsidass. Slaje, Walter (ed.)(1993): Bhāskarakaṇṭhas Mokṣopāya-Ṭīkā. Ein Kommentar in der Tradition der kaschmirischen Yogavāsiṣṭha-Überlieferung. 2. Prakaraṇa (Mumukṣuvyavahāra). Graz: Leykam. (Materialien für eine kritische Ausgabe des Mokṣopāya, 1.) Slaje, Walter (1994): Vom Mokṣopāya-Śāstra zum Yogavāsiṣṭha-Mahārāmāyaṇa. Philologische Untersuchungen zur Entwicklungs- und Überlieferungsgeschichte eines indischen Lehrwerks mit Anspruch auf Heilsrelevanz. Wien: ÖAW. (SAWW, 609.) Slaje, Walter (1994a): “Die Angst der Yogis vor der Versenkung.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 38, 273-291. Slaje, Walter (ed.)(1995): Bhāskarakaṇṭhas Mokṣopāya-Ṭīkā. Ein Kommentar in der Tradition der kaschmirischen Yogavāsiṣṭha-Überlieferung. Die Fragmente des 3. (Utpatti-) Prakaraṇa. Graz: EWS-Fachverlag. (Materialien für eine kritische Ausgabe des Mokṣopāya, 2.) Slaje, Walter (ed.)(1996): Bhāskarakaṇṭhas Mokṣopāya-Ṭīkā. Ein Kommentar in der Tradition der kaschmirischen Yogavāsiṣṭha-Überlieferung. 1. (Vairāgya-) Prakaraṇa. Unter Mitarbeit von Jutta Valent ausgegeben. Graz: EWS-Fachverlag. (Materialien für eine kritische Ausgabe des Mokṣopāya, 3.) Slaje, Walter (in this volume): “Yājñavalkya-brāhmaṇas and the early Mīmāṃsā.” Sprockhoff, Joachim Friedrich (1976): Saṃnyāsa. Quellenstudien zur Askese im Hinduismus. I. Untersuchungen über die Saṃnyāsa-Upaniṣads. Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft; Kommissionsverlag Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden. (AKM XLII, 1.) Śrīnivāsadāsa: Yatīndramatadīpikā. In: Śrī Bhāshya Vārtika, a treatise on Viśishtādvaita philosophy; also Yatīndra Mat Dīpikā, by Nivāsā Chārya son of Govindā Chārya, and Sakalāchāryamat Saṅgrah, edited by Ratna Gopāl Bhaṭṭa. Benares: printed at the Vidyā Vilās Press. 1907. (Benares Sanskrit Series, 123 & 133.) Staal, J.F. (ed.)(1972): A Reader on the Sanskrit Grammarians. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England: MIT Press. Reprint: Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi etc. 1985. Stephan, Peter (2002): Erlösung im Spannungsfeld von aktivem Leben und Entsagung. Eine Studie zu Śaṅkaras Exegese der Bhagavadgītā. Aachen: Shaker Verlag. (Geisteskultur Indiens, Texte und Studien, 3; Indologica Halensis.) Subrahmanya Sastri, A. (1961): Prakaraṇa Pañcikā of Sri Śālikanātha Miśra with Nyāya-Siddhi. Edited with introduction and notes. Banaras Hindu University. (Banaras Hindu University Darśana Series, 4.) Sureśvara: Sambandhavārttika on Śaṅkara's Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad Bhāṣya. Edition used: Shri Sureshvaracharya's Brihadaranyakopanishad-Sambandhabhashyavartikam, with the commentary of Shri Aanandagiri Aacharya, ... edited with introduction notes, etc. by ... S. Subrahmanya Shastri; Mount Abu, Varanasi: Mahesh Research Institute; 1980 (Advaita Grantha Ratna Manjusha Ratna, 22.) Sureśvara: Naiṣkarmyasiddhi. Edition used: The Naiṣkarmya-siddhi of Sureśvarācārya, with the Candrikā of Jñānottama, edited with notes and index by the late Colonel G.A. Jacob. Revised edition, with introduction and explanatory notes by M. Hiriyanna. 1925. Reprint: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona. 1980. (Bombay Sanskrit and Prakrit Series, 38.) Taber, John (1981): “Reason, revelation and idealism in Śaṅkara's Vedānta.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 9, 283-307. Taber, John A. (1983): Transformative Philosophy. A study of Śaṅkara, Fichte, and Heidegger. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Taber, John (in this volume): “Kumārila and Śaṅkara on liberation.” Thibaut, George (tr.)(1890/1896): Vedânta-Sûtras with the commentary by Śaṅkarācārya. Part I & II. Clarendon Press. Reprint: Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1973. Thrasher, Allen Wright (1979): “The dates of Maṇḍana Miśra and Śaṃkara.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 23, 117-139. Thrasher, Allen Wright (1993): The Advaita-Vedānta of Brahma-siddhi. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Ungemach, Anton (1996): “Die vier Hauptschüler Śaṅkaras in den Śaṅkara-Legenden.” Nānāvidhaikatā. Festschrift für Hermann Berger. Hrsg. Dieter B. Kapp. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (Beiträge zur Kenntnis südasiatischer Sprachen und Literaturen, 4.) Pp. 292-310. Vācaspati Miśra: Bhāmatī. See under Śaṅkara, Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya. van Buitenen, J.A.B. (1956): Rāmānuja's Vedārthasaṃgraha. Introduction, critical edition and annotated translation. Poona: Deccan College. (Deccan College Monograph Series, 16.) van Buitenen, J.A.B. (1961): "The relative dates of Śaṃkara and Bhāskara." Adyar Library Bulletin 25, 268-273. Reprint: van Buitenen, 1988: 187-190. van Buitenen, J.A.B. (1988): Studies in Indian Literature and Philosophy: Collected Articles. Ed. Ludo Rocher. Delhi etc.: Motilal Banarsidass. Venkataramiah, D. (tr.)(1948): The Pañcapādikā of Padmapāda (translated into English). Baroda: Oriental Institute. (Gaekwad's Oriental Series, 107.) Vetter, Tilmann (1969): Maṇḍanamiśra's Brahmasiddhiḥ, Brahmakāṇḍa. Übersetzung, Einleitung und Anmerkungen. Wien. (SAWW 262, 2.) Vetter, Tilmann (1969a): “Zur Bedeutung des Illusionismus bei Śaṅkara.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Süd- und Ostasiens 12-13 (1968-69; Festschrift für Erich Frauwallner), 407-423. Vetter, Tilmann (1978): “Die Gauḍapādīya-Kārikās: zur Entstehung und zur Bedeutung von (A)dvaita.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 22, 95-131. Vetter, Tilmann (1978a): “Erfahrung des Unerfahrbaren bei Śaṅkara.” Transzendenzerfahrung, Vollzugshorizont des Heils. Das Problem in indischer und christlicher Tradition. Ed. Gerhard Oberhammer. Wien. (Publications of the De Nobili Research Library, 5.) Pp. 45-59. Vetter, Tilmann (1979): Studien zur Lehre und Entwicklung Śaṅkaras. Wien. (Publications of the De Nobili Research Library, 6.) Witzel, Michael (1982): “Materialien zu den vedischen Schulen, 1: Über die Caraka-Śākhā.” Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 8/9, 171-240. Witzel, Michael (1985): “Regionale und überregionale Faktoren in der Entwicklung vedischer Brahmanengruppen im Mittelalter (Materialien zu den vedischen Schulen, 5).” Regionale Tradition in Südasien. Hrsg. Hermann Kulke und Dietmar Rothermund. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner. (Beiträge zur Südasienforschung, Südasien-Institut, Universität Heidelberg, 104.) Pp. 37-76. Wood, Thomas E. (1990): The Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad and the Āgama Śāstra. An investigation into the meaning of the Vedānta. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy, Monograph no. 8.) Yāmuna: Ātmasiddhi. In: Sri Yamunacharya's Siddhi Traya, with a Sanskrit commentary ... by ... Uttamur T. Viraraghavacharya ... and translation in English by R. Ramanujachari & ... K. Srinivasacharya. Madras: Ubhaya Vedanta Granthamala Book Trust. 1972. (The edition was first published in Tirupatti, 1942.) Yoshimizu, Kiyotaka (1997): Der ‘Organismus’ des urheberlosen Veda. Eine Studie der Niyoga-Lehre Prabhākaras mit ausgewählten Übersetzungen der Bṛhatī. Wien. Commission agents: Gerold, Wien; Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi. (Publications of the De Nobili Research Library, 25.) Yoshimizu, Kiyotaka (in this volume): “Kumārila's reevaluation of the sacrifice and the Veda from a Vedānta perspective.” Abbreviations: AAWL Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz, Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Klasse AKM Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Wiesbaden; earlier Leipzig ASS Ānandāśrama Sanskrit Series, Poona BĀrUp Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad Bhag Bhagavadgītā BORI Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona BraSū Brahmasūtra BSūBhā Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya of Śaṅkara ChānUp Chāndogya Upaniṣad EIP The Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, ed. Karl H. Potter, Delhi 1970 ff. GK The Āgamaśāstra of Gauḍapāda, ed. Vidhushekhara Bhattacharya, 1943, reprint Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi 1989 Kane, HistDh Pandurang Vaman Kane, History of Dharmaśāstra, second edition, Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 5 vols., 1968-1977 Mhbh Mahābhārata, crit. ed. V.S. Sukthankar u.a., Poona 1933-41 (BORI) MīmSū Mīmāṃsāsūtra MuṇUp Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad NBh Nyāya Bhāṣya of Pakṣilasvāmin Vātsyāyana, in the following edition: Nyāyadarśanam with Vātsyāyana's Bhāṣya, Uddyotakara's Vārttika, Vācaspati Miśra's Tātparyaṭīkā & Viśvanātha's Vṛtti. Chapter I, section I critically edited with notes by Taranatha Nyaya-Tarkatirtha and chapters I-ii—V by Amarendramohan Tarkatirtha, with an introduction by Narendra Chandra Vedantatirtha. Calcutta: Metropolitan Printing & Publishing House, 1936. ÖAW Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien SAWW Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Phil.-hist. Kl., Wien TaitS Taittirīya Saṃhitā TanVār Tantravārttika of Kumārilabhaṭṭa (ASS, 97) Vkp Bhartṛhari, Vākyapadīya, ed. W. Rau, Wiesbaden 1977 VWC A Vedic Word Concordance, by Vishva Bandhu, 5 vols., Hoshiarpur: V.V.R. Institute, 1955-1965 YogV Yogavāsiṣṭha. For the edition see Pansikar, 1918. (YogV 6 refers to the Pūrvārdha and YogV 7 to the Uttarārdha of Prakaraṇa 6.) edānta as Mīmāṃsā 77

Log In

Vedānta as Mīmāṃsā

Vedānta as Mīmāṃsā

Vedānta as Mīmāṃsā

Vedānta as Mīmāṃsā

Vedānta as Mīmāṃsā

Related Papers

RELATED PAPERS