Summaries

P. V Kane:
“The doctrines of the early and principal writers on Pūrvamīmāmsā are rather quaint and startling. Their arguments about the eternality and self-existence of the Veda are fallacious… Both Prabhākara and Kumārila have in their scheme no place for God…. They raise yajña to the position of God, and their dogmas about yajña seem to be based upon a sort of commercial or business-like system, viz. one should do so many acts, dispense gifts to priests, offer certain offerings, observe certain ethical rules and other rules of conduct (such as not eating flesh, subsisting on milk) and then the reward would follow without the intervention of God…”

Prof. S Radhakrishnan: “It is unnecessary to say much about the unsatisfactory character of the Pūrvamīmāmsā as a system of philosophy. As a philosophical view of the universe, it is strikingly incomplete. It did not concern itself with the problems of ultimate reality… Its ethics was purely mechanical and its religion was unsound.”

Dr. Dasgupta: “… the Mīmāmsā is no more a living system and its name does not command much respect even among scholars.”

Prof. Ganganath Jha: “Mimāṁsā proper… never claimed to be a darśana. In fact, so far as the sūtra is concerned, it does not take cognisance of any philosophical topic except that of pramāņa… The commentators have introduced such topics as ‘soul’, and ‘apūrva’…”