Purvamimamsa from an interdisciplinary point of view

The volumes of the PROJECT ON THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND CULTURE IN INDIAN CIVILIZATION aims at discovering the main aspects of India's heritage and present them in an interrelated way. These volumes, in spite of their unitary look, recognize the difference between the areas of material civilization and those of ideational culture. The Project is not being executed by a single group of thinkers who are methodologically uniform or ideologically identical in their commitments. In fact, contributions are made by different scholars with different ideological persuasions and methodological approaches. The Project is marked by what may be called 'methodological pluralism'. In spite of its primarily historical character, this Project, both in its conceptualisation and execution, has been shaped by scholars drawn from different disciplines. It is for the first time that an endeavour of such a unique and comprehensive character has been undertaken to study critically a major world civilization like India.

Purvamimamsa is one of the six systems of Indian philosophy and a very ancient one. The Jaimini Sutras consisting of 2700 sutras arranged in 12 chapters are the primary source of Purvamimamsa. It is developed into two schools, Bhatta school initiated by Kumarila Bhatta and Prabhakara school initiated by Prabhakara. Mimamsa has made rich contribution to the areas of epistemology, linguistics and programme organization. The concept of the intrinsic validity of cognition including the impersonal nature of the Veda and acceptance of the cognition of certain entities such as ethical values beyond the empirical means of cognition, are its contribution to epistemology. Considering the language as autonomous at word, sentence and discourse levels and developing a distinct hermeneutics to interpret the Vedic passages and developing the rules of interpretation, are its contribution to linguistics. Developing detailed guidelines for organizing the ritual programme is, however, its most important contribution. The rules of interpretation evolved by Purvamimamsa for the purpose of interpreting Vedic passages are so fundamental and universal that these can be applied to interpret any other scripture. These are utilized by other Indian philosophical systems, Dharmasastras and ancient Indian judicial system. Maxwells' rules of interpretation closely resemble Purvamimamsa rules. The guidelines laid down for ritual organization are also very systematic and could be applied to any other programme organization. These aspects of Purvamimamsa are highlighted in this volume.

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