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Tier 2 · Vedic system 5

Mīmāṃsā

पूर्वमीमांसा

How do you read a text that nobody wrote? Mīmāṃsā's answer became the most rigorous hermeneutic apparatus produced anywhere before the modern period — a theory of injunction, a ranked hierarchy of interpretive evidence, a five-part method for settling any disputed passage, and a doctrine that a cognition is innocent until proven guilty.

It is also, on principle, atheistic; it holds the world to be beginningless; and its rules of construction are still occasionally cited in Indian courtrooms.

The name
mīmāṃsā मीमांसा — “reflection, profound investigation”, from a desiderative of man, to think. Also Pūrva-mīmāṃsā, the prior enquiry, and Karma-mīmāṃsā, the enquiry into ritual action
Root text
Mīmāṃsā-sūtra मीमांसासूत्र of Jaimini, c. 200 BCE – 200 CE — twelve books, about 2,700 aphorisms. The largest of the sūtra collections
The commentary
Śabara's Śābara-bhāṣya, c. 5th century — the text everything later comments on
Two schools
Bhāṭṭa, after Kumārila Bhaṭṭa (c. 700) — Ślokavārttika, Tantravārttika, Ṭupṭīkā
Prābhākara, after Prabhākara Miśra “Guru” (c. 700) — the Bṛhatī. A third school follows Murāri Miśra
Later manuals
Pārthasārathi Miśra's Śāstra-dīpikā · Śālikanātha's Prakaraṇa-pañcikā · Āpadeva's Mīmāṃsā-nyāya-prakāśa · Laugākṣi Bhāskara's Artha-saṃgraha
Means of knowledge
Six for Bhāṭṭa; five for Prābhākara, who rejects non-apprehension
God
None, and the arguments against a creator are among the sharpest in Indian philosophy — §13
Paired with
Vedānta, the “later enquiry”, which takes its whole toolkit and rejects its conclusion

1Dharma, and why nothing else can find itधर्मजिज्ञासा

अथातो धर्मजिज्ञासा ॥
चोदनालक्षणोऽर्थो धर्मः ॥

athāto dharma-jijñāsā | codanā-lakṣaṇo'rtho dharmaḥ

Mīmāṃsā-sūtra 1.1.1–2 — “Now therefore, the enquiry into dharma. Dharma is that good which is characterised by an injunction.”

Why only the Veda can be a means of knowing dharma Perception and inference deal only with what already exists; dharma is what ought to be done, and is known only through injunction. THE DEFINITION, UNPACKED codanā an injunction, a command · lakṣaṇa whose defining mark is · artha a good, a benefit Dharma is not a fact about the world that happens to be commanded. It is constituted by being commanded — there is nothing else it could be. Why perception cannot reach it · 1.1.4 satsamprayoge puruṣasyendriyāṇāṃ buddhi-janma tat pratyakṣam animittaṃ vidyamānopalambhanatvāt Perception arises from contact with what exists. It is therefore no source for dharma, because it apprehends only what is present. And nor can inference, testimony or the rest All of them start from something perceived. If perception cannot deliver an ought, nothing built on it can either. And human testimony is only as good as its speaker's knowledge, which faces the same wall. So: only an authorless injunction. §2. The shape of the argument is worth noticing Mīmāṃsā has identified something very like the gap between is and ought, and has drawn the conclusion that a distinct source of knowledge is required for the second. Everything else in the school follows from taking that conclusion completely seriously.

2A text with no authorअपौरुषेयत्वम्

If dharma is known only from injunction, the injunction must come from a source that cannot be wrong. Mīmāṃsā's solution is radical: remove the speaker.

The argument for the Veda's authorlessness Error enters through a speaker; the Veda has no remembered author; the names attached to its branches are of teachers, not composers. Step 1 · Where does error come from? From a speaker. Statements go wrong because their authors are ignorant, mistaken, careless or lying. There is no other source of falsity in testimony. Nyāya agrees with the analysis and draws the opposite conclusion — see the box below. Step 2 · Remove the speaker and you remove the possibility of error A text with no author has no ignorance to transmit, no interest to serve and no carelessness to commit. Its reliability is not a matter of trusting anybody. This is apauruṣeyatva — “not-of-a-person-ness” — and it is not a pious claim. It is doing exact epistemological work. Step 3 · The evidence offered · No author is remembered, and an author of something so important would have been. · The names attached to the branches — Kāṭhaka, Taittirīya — are the names of teachers who transmitted them, not of composers. The tradition says so itself. · And the words themselves are eternal — §3. The exact reversal of Nyāya Nyāya agrees that testimony is reliable only when its speaker is, and concludes that the Veda must have a perfectly reliable speaker: God. Mīmāṃsā concludes that it must have no speaker at all. Same premise, opposite conclusion, and the whole quarrel about God in Indian philosophy turns on it.
The position has a striking consequence that Mīmāṃsā embraces: since the Veda has no author, there is no creator either — a creator would be an author, and there was no first moment at which the Veda could have been composed. §13.

3Why words are eternalशब्दनित्यत्वम्

An authorless text needs words that were not invented. Mīmāṃsā argues that the connection between word and meaning is not a convention anyone set up.

औत्पत्तिकस्तु शब्दस्यार्थेन सम्बन्धः ॥

Mīmāṃsā-sūtra 1.1.5 — “But the relation of a word to its meaning is original.”

Nyāya

Sound is produced. You make it by moving your throat, and it ceases. It is a quality of ether that arises and perishes, and the link between a word and what it means is a convention God laid down and we learn.

Mīmāṃsā

Then explain recognition. When I hear “cow” twice I do not say “there is another one like the first”; I say “that is the same word”. Recognition of identity is evidence of identity. What the utterance does is manifest the word, as a lamp manifests a pot already in the room. It does not produce it.

And if the relation were conventional, the first convention would need a language to be laid down in — and someone to lay it down, whom we have already dispensed with.

A distinction that must be kept

The eternal entities for Mīmāṃsā are the phonemes — the varṇas. This is not the Grammarians' doctrine of sphoṭa, the indivisible meaning-bearing whole that flashes forth. Kumārila devotes a substantial section of the Ślokavārttika to refuting sphoṭa. The two positions are often confused and are opposed.

4Innocent until proven guiltyस्वतःप्रामाण्यम्

Mīmāṃsā's most exportable idea, and the one with the widest application beyond scripture. Where does a cognition's authority come from?

Four positions on the source of validity and invalidity A two by two grid crossing intrinsic and extrinsic validity with intrinsic and extrinsic invalidity, locating Samkhya, Nyaya, the Buddhists and Mimamsa. VALIDITY IS INTRINSIC VALIDITY IS EXTRINSIC INVALIDITY INTRINSIC INVALIDITY EXTRINSIC Sāṅkhya Both are intrinsic. A cognition carries its own certificate, and so does a false one. Problem: then a mistaken cognition would announce itself as mistaken while you were having it, and nobody is ever taken in. The Buddhists Validity must be earned; falsity is native. A cognition counts as knowledge only when it leads to successful action. Consistent with momentariness and with a pragmatic criterion of truth. Mīmāṃsā A cognition is valid by the very conditions that produce it. Invalidity arrives from outside — from a defect in the organ, or a later contradiction. You do not have to certify a belief before holding it. You have to give it up when something defeats it. Nyāya Both are extrinsic. Validity is established by a further cognition — typically the success of the action it prompts. Mīmāṃsā's objection: that further cognition would itself need certifying, and so on. An infinite regress, and nothing is ever known.
The four possible positions, and all four were occupied. Mīmāṃsā's is the one that has aged best: a defeasible default. Beliefs are entitled until challenged, and the burden falls on the challenger. Note the motive — if validity had to be earned, the Veda could never establish its own, since there is nothing outside it to check it against.

5Six means of knowledgeषट् प्रमाणानि

Mīmāṃsā accepts Nyāya's four and adds two of its own. Both additions are genuinely distinct, and both were resisted.

The two pramanas that Mimamsa adds Postulation, which resolves an incompatibility between two known facts, and non-apprehension, which knows an absence. Shared with Nyāya: pratyakṣa perception · anumāna inference · upamāna comparison · śabda testimony — with the Veda as its supreme instance 5 · arthāpatti · अर्थापत्ति · postulation The standard case: Devadatta is fat, and Devadatta does not eat during the day. Both are known. They are incompatible — unless he eats at night. So we know he eats at night. Why it is not inference: there is no pervasion. Nobody has established that all who are fat and fast by day eat by night. What is happening is the postulation of whatever would remove an incompatibility between two things already known — which is a different move, closer to inference to the best explanation. 6 · anupalabdhi · अनुपलब्धि · non-apprehension There is no pot on the floor. How do you know? Not by perceiving the pot — there is none. Not by inference — the mark would be an absence. You know it by the appropriate non-apprehension of something that would have been apprehended had it been there. Bhāṭṭa accepts it; Prābhākara rejects it — the school's sharpest internal split, and it is about whether absence is a fact at all. See §12. The qualifier “appropriate” carries the weight: not perceiving a ghost is no evidence, because a ghost would not have been perceived anyway.
The move each addition makes is the same: identify a piece of ordinary knowing that the existing four cannot account for, and refuse to force it into one of them. Nyāya folds postulation into inference and absence into perception; Mīmāṃsā argues that both reductions lose something.

6Five kinds of Vedic sentenceवेदवाक्यभेदाः

Only some of the Veda commands. Mīmāṃsā's next task is to say what the rest is doing — and its answer is uncompromising.

The five classes of Vedic sentence Injunction, prohibition, name, mantra and eulogy, with only the first two carrying independent authority. 1 · vidhiविधि injunction — “one who desires heaven should sacrifice” the only self-standing authority Everything else in the Veda is subordinate to these. Three kinds are distinguished in §7. 2 · niṣedhaनिषेध prohibition — “one should not injure any living being” an injunction with a negative Treated as a species of the first, and the source of some of the school's hardest cases — see the falcon rite in §11. 3 · nāmadheyaनामधेय a name — “this is the udbhid sacrifice” Naming, not commanding. Deciding whether a phrase is a name or a further injunction is a standard problem, and the maxims of §11 exist to settle it. 4 · mantraमन्त्र a formula recited during the act Its function is to bring the relevant thing to mind at the right moment. It states nothing and enjoins nothing on its own. 5 · arthavādaअर्थवाद eulogy or explanation — praise, censure, story, etymology “The wind is the swiftest deity.” “Prajāpati cut out his own fat.” Narrative, cosmology, myth, and the great bulk of the Brāhmaṇa prose. These have no independent authority whatever. Their sole function is to commend or discourage the act enjoined nearby. Which means most of the Veda's most quoted sentences are, for Mīmāṃsā, motivational apparatus.
This is the doctrine Vedānta must break. If everything non-injunctive is mere commendation, then the Upaniṣads — which mostly state facts and command almost nothing — are arthavāda, and the knowledge of brahman is not a legitimate object of enquiry. Śaṅkara's argument that a statement of existing fact can itself be liberating is aimed directly at this table.

7Three kinds of injunctionविधित्रयम्

Three types of injunction Originative, restrictive and exclusive injunctions, distinguished by whether the enjoined matter is otherwise known. apūrva-vidhiअपूर्वविधि the originative injunction Enjoins something not knownfrom any other source. “One who desires heavenshould perform theagnihotra.” Nothing outside the Veda couldhave told you this. The purestcase, and the one that makesthe school necessary. niyama-vidhiनियमविधि the restrictive injunction The matter is already possiblein several ways; the injunctionconfines it to one. “One threshes the rice.” Husking could be done by nailor by threshing. Both work.The injunction rules out thealternative for ritual purposes. parisaṅkhyā-vidhiपरिसंख्या the exclusive injunction Ostensibly enjoins something,but its real force is toexclude everything else. “Five five-clawed animalsmay be eaten.” Not a recommendation to eatthem. A prohibition on the rest,phrased positively.
The distinction is not scholastic. It determines what a sentence obliges you to do, and a whole class of disputes in Dharmaśāstra turns on whether a given text is restrictive or exclusive — that is, on whether it recommends one option or forbids all the others.

8Apūrvaअपूर्वम्

A rite is performed today. Its promised result arrives after death. What connects them, in a system with no God to remember the transaction?

Apurva as the link between act and result The rite ends but produces an unseen potency that persists and yields the result later. The act The sacrifice is performed, and then it is over. apūrva · अपूर्व “the not-before” — a potency that did not exist until the act produced it The result Heaven, or whatever the injunction promised — years or lives later. Why the school needs it A cause must be present when its effect arises. The rite is long finished. So either something persists, or the injunction is empty. Mīmāṃsā chooses the first — and refuses to make the something a God who keeps accounts. Compare, and note the difference Vaiśeṣika's adṛṣṭa is a quality of a soul, administered by God at the appropriate time. Mīmāṃsā's apūrva needs no administrator. It is the causal efficacy of the act itself, persisting — a piece of impersonal machinery, like a law rather than a ledger.
Critics from every side called it a posit invented to save the theory, and they had a point: apūrva is unperceived, uninferable from anything but the injunction, and known only because the system requires it. Mīmāṃsā's reply is that its existence is established by postulation — the fifth pramāṇa of §5, invoked on its own behalf.

9Six ways to find the meaningषड्विधं तात्पर्यलिङ्गम्

The apparatus that made Mīmāṃsā indispensable to everyone else. When a passage is ambiguous, six kinds of evidence bear on its meaning — and they are ranked, so that a conflict has a determinate answer.

The six indications of purport, in order of strength Direct statement, indication, syntactic connection, context, position and name, each weaker than the last. 1 · śrutiश्रुति direct statement — the text simply says so STRONGEST Nothing overrides an explicit word. “With curd he sacrifices” fixes curd, whatever the context suggests. 2 · liṅgaलिङ्ग indication — what the words are capable of meaning A mantra whose sense fits only one action indicates that action, even if no rule assigns it. 3 · vākyaवाक्य syntactic connection — what stands in one sentence with what Words joined in a single construction belong together, and must not be split apart to serve two purposes. 4 · prakaraṇaप्रकरण context — the larger procedure the passage serves A detail occurring within the description of a rite belongs to that rite, unless something stronger says otherwise. 5 · sthānaस्थान position — where the passage stands in the sequence Weak evidence, but evidence: order of recitation reflects order of performance. 6 · samākhyāसमाख्या name — what the section is traditionally called Weakest. A name may be a nickname; it yields to everything above it.
The ranking is what makes it a method rather than a list of considerations. When context suggests one reading and an explicit word another, the word wins — and the interpreter cannot choose. This is the feature that later made the scheme attractive to lawyers.

10How a question is settledअधिकरणम्

Every topic in the Mīmāṃsā-sūtra is treated in the same five-part form, and about a thousand such units make up the text. The form is the school's real contribution to method.

The five parts of an adhikarana Topic, doubt, prima facie view, conclusion, and relevance. 1 · viṣayaविषय the topic — the passage under discussion, quoted Nothing is discussed in the abstract. Every unit begins from a specific text. 2 · saṃśayaसंशय the doubt — precisely what is unclear, stated as a question Usually of the form: is it this, or that? A doubt with two named horns, not a vague uncertainty. 3 · pūrvapakṣaपूर्वपक्ष the prior view — the answer that is going to be rejected, argued at full strength Often the longest part. A weak pūrvapakṣa is a fault in the author, not a convenience. 4 · siddhāntaसिद्धान्त the conclusion — the established position, with its reasons Must answer the pūrvapakṣa's arguments, not merely assert the contrary. 5 · saṅgatiसङ्गति the connection — why this topic arises here, and not somewhere else The requirement that a work be a structured argument rather than a sequence of remarks. Where you have seen this before Every Sanskrit śāstra adopts this form: philosophy grammar law medicine poetics It is why an Indian technical text reads as a running debate rather than an exposition — and why the opponent's case is always stated first.

11The maximsन्यायाः

Recurring patterns of argument were given names, and the names became portable. A Mīmāṃsā nyāya is a rule of construction with a nickname, and citing one saves a page.

MaximDevanāgarīThe rule
Gauṇa-mukhya-nyāyaगौणमुख्यन्यायWhere a word can be taken primarily or figuratively, the primary sense prevails — unless it is impossible.
Vākya-bhedaवाक्यभेदA single sentence must not be split to yield two injunctions. If a reading requires splitting, it is defective.
Sāmānya-viśeṣa-nyāyaसामान्यविशेषन्यायA special provision prevails over a general one, within its own scope. The general rule is not thereby cancelled.
Śyena-nyāyaश्येनन्यायThe falcon rite is prescribed for one who wishes to harm an enemy — and harming is prohibited. Resolution: the text tells you what would achieve the end, without licensing the end. A statement of efficacy is not a permission.
Ardha-vaiśasa-nyāyaअर्धवैशसन्याय“Half-slaughter.” An interpretation that solves half a problem and leaves the rest maimed is worse than none.
Kāka-dantī-parīkṣāकाकदन्तीपरीक्षा“Examining the crow's teeth.” Investigating what has no bearing on anything, however rigorously.
Siṃhāvalokana-nyāyaसिंहावलोकनन्याय“The lion's backward glance.” Move forward while regularly looking back to check that what was settled still holds.
The falcon maxim, and why it matters

Śyena is Mīmāṃsā's hardest case and it is treated at length. The Veda prohibits harm; it also describes a rite for destroying an enemy. Both are Vedic, so neither can be dismissed. The resolution given — that the passage states what would accomplish the purpose without enjoining the purpose — separates a conditional statement of means from an authorisation, and it is exactly the distinction a legal system needs when a rule appears to sanction what another rule forbids.

12Bhāṭṭa against Prābhākaraभाट्टप्राभाकरौ

Bhāṭṭa · after KumārilaPrābhākara · after Prabhākara
PramāṇasSixFive — non-apprehension is rejected, because absence is not a further fact but simply the bare locus
ErrorViparīta-khyāti: a single positively erroneous cognition, in which the shell is grasped as silverAkhyāti: no false cognition exists at all. A true perception and a true memory, and a failure to notice they are two. All cognition is true.
How a cognition is knownInferred from the cognisedness it produces in its object. Cognition itself is never directly perceivedTripuṭī-pratyakṣa: every cognition reveals three things at once — itself, its object, and the knower
Why one obeys an injunctionBecause of the result promised. The injunction moves you by holding out a desired endBecause it is enjoined. The injunction produces a sense of kārya, of what is to be done, which motivates without reference to any desire of yours
LiberationA state of the self free of pain — and, on some readings, of everything elseSimilar, and reached by the same route: exhaust existing karma, undertake no new optional acts
TemperamentSystematic, polemical, engaged with Buddhism at every turnAustere, internally driven, less concerned to fight outside the school
Prabhākara's duty for its own sake

The fourth row is the most philosophically interesting disagreement in Mīmāṃsā, and it has a familiar shape. For Kumārila, an injunction works through a desire: you want heaven, and here is how. For Prabhākara, the injunction itself generates the obligation — the recognition that something is to be done is sufficient to move a rational agent, and the promised result is a separate matter. Comparisons with Kant are made and are worth making carefully: Prabhākara's niyoga is a duty grounded in a command from an authorless text, not in the form of practical reason, and the difference is not small.

13Against a creatorईश्वरनिराकरणम्

Mimamsa's arguments against a creator No evidence, no motive, no body to act with, no material to work on, and the destruction of the Veda's authority. No witness, no evidence Nobody saw a creation. Thereis no perceptual basis and novalid inference to one. The world is beginningless, and needs no origin. No motive available A perfect being wants nothing.If he creates for sport, he isfrivolous; from compassion, hewould have made no suffering. No body, no material Agency as we know it requiresa body and pre-existing stuff. Deny both to God and the word “makes”has lost its meaning. And the decisive one, for this school If God composed the Veda, the Veda has an author — and an authored text is only as reliable as its author, whose reliability we would then need independent grounds to establish. We have none. A creator does not support scripture's authority. He destroys it. Mīmāṃsā's atheism is in defence of the Veda, not against it.
Note how completely this inverts the expected alignment. The school most committed to Vedic authority is the school most committed to there being no God — and for exactly that reason. Nyāya, which proves God, is the more “secular” school in its account of scripture.

14The self, and a late liberationआत्मा मोक्षश्च

The self

Eternal, many, and distinct from the body — established because the injunctions promise results after death, and a promise to a body that will not exist is empty. The argument is characteristically Mīmāṃsaka: the self is proved from the requirements of ritual.

It is not pure consciousness. Consciousness is a property the self acquires when conditions permit, as in Nyāya. Bhāṭṭa holds that the self is known partly by inference from the cognisedness of objects; Prābhākara that it is revealed in every cognition alongside the object.

Liberation, which is an afterthought

The Mīmāṃsā-sūtra does not discuss mokṣa. Its stated goal is heaven, obtained by ritual. Liberation enters only with Kumārila and Prabhākara, some eight hundred years later, under pressure from the schools around them.

And it is arrived at conservatively: exhaust the karma you have by undergoing its results, undertake no new optional rites that would generate more, and continue the obligatory ones so as not to incur the demerit of omission. No knowledge of brahman, and nothing mystical. Duty, until the account is empty.

15Into the lawव्यवहारे

Mīmāṃsā's rules were built to reconcile conflicting sentences in an authoritative text. That is also the central problem of jurisprudence, and the transfer happened early.

The migration of Mimamsa's rules into law From Vedic exegesis into Dharmasastra, into medieval commentarial jurisprudence, and into modern Indian courts. Vedic exegesis Reconciling injunctions that appear to conflict, in a text that cannot be wrong. Dharmaśāstra The same problem with smṛti texts: Manu says one thing, Yājñavalkya another. The digests Medieval commentators — the Mitākṣarā, the Dāyabhāga — argue points of inheritance in Mīmāṃsā form. Modern courts Indian judgments have cited Mīmāṃsā maxims as principles of statutory interpretation. Why the rules travelled so well Because they were designed for exactly the situation a judge is in: an authoritative text that cannot simply be overruled, passages that appear to conflict, and a requirement to produce one determinate answer. Three that have direct counterparts in modern statutory interpretation: a special provision prevails over a general one; the primary sense of a word is preferred to a figurative one; and a sentence must not be split to produce two commands. Each is a settled canon of construction, arrived at independently.
The claim to be careful with is the last box. Mīmāṃsā principles have been cited in Indian judgments, notably in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by judges with a scholarly interest in them. That is a real and documented fact; it does not make them a routine part of Indian legal practice, and stating it as such would be an overstatement.

16Self-checkपरीक्षा

Check your reading

1 · Why does Mīmāṃsā hold that perception cannot be a source of dharma?

Sūtra 1.1.4. The school has identified something very like the is–ought gap and built its whole epistemology around the conclusion.

2 · What work is apauruṣeyatva doing?

And it is why Mīmāṃsā must deny a creator: a divine author would make the Veda authored, and so only as good as its author.

3 · On the doctrine of intrinsic validity, when must a belief be justified?

A defeasible default. The argument against the alternative is a regress: if each cognition needs certifying by another, nothing is ever known.

4 · What is arthavāda, and why does the category matter?

This is the doctrine Vedānta must break, since the Upaniṣads mostly state facts rather than command.

5 · In the six indications of purport, what happens when context and an explicit word conflict?

The ranking is what makes it a method rather than a list of considerations, and it is why lawyers found it useful.

Questions worth arguing about

Is an authorless text coherent?

Language is a human practice; sentences are the sort of thing people produce. Mīmāṃsā's reply is that this begs the question by assuming what it needs to show, and it offers the recognition argument of §3 as positive evidence. The modern reader will find the linguistics implausible and should notice that the epistemology survives the loss: the underlying insight — that a source of norms cannot itself be certified by a norm-user without circularity — does not depend on the eternality of phonemes.

Does Prābhākara's account of obligation avoid the Euthyphro problem or fall into it?

Neatly, it avoids one horn: dharma is not right because a person commands it, since there is no person. But the other horn is sharper. If the injunction constitutes the obligation, there is nothing outside it by which any injunction could be assessed — including the falcon rite of §11. Mīmāṃsā's handling of that case is ingenious, and it is ingenious precisely because the system leaves it nowhere else to stand.

What is left of Mīmāṃsā once you drop the Veda?

A great deal, and this is the reason the school repays study by people with no interest in ritual. Intrinsic validity, the ranked hierarchy of interpretive evidence, the five-part method, the distinction between a statement of efficacy and an authorisation, postulation as a distinct form of inference — every one of these is a general result about texts, norms and belief. Take away the object and the instruments still work.

17Glossaryशब्दकोशः

IASTDevanāgarīSense
adhikaraṇaअधिकरणA topic-unit of five parts; the basic building block of the śāstra.
apauruṣeyatvaअपौरुषेयत्वAuthorlessness; the ground of the Veda's freedom from error.
apūrvaअपूर्व“The not-before”: the potency by which a completed act yields a later result.
arthāpattiअर्थापत्तिPostulation of what would remove an incompatibility between two known facts.
arthavādaअर्थवादEulogy or explanation; without independent authority.
codanāचोदनाInjunction; the mark by which dharma is known.
nāmadheyaनामधेयA name, as against an injunction.
niyoga / kāryaनियोग / कार्यPrābhākara's obligation, and the sense of what-is-to-be-done that it produces.
svataḥ-prāmāṇyaस्वतःप्रामाण्यIntrinsic validity: a cognition is valid by the conditions that produced it.
tātparya-liṅgaतात्पर्यलिङ्गAn indication of purport; six are recognised, in a fixed order of strength.
vidhiविधिAn injunction; of three kinds — originative, restrictive, exclusive.
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