21. Innocent Until Proven Guilty: Mimamsa on Knowledge and Language

The Mīmāṃsā school put their faith in sense experience, and argue that the Veda, and hence language itself, had no beginning.

• G.P. Bhatt, The Basic Ways of Knowing: an In-Depth Study of Kumārila’s Contribution to Indian Epistemology (Delhi: 1989).

• F.X. Clooney, “Why the Veda Has No Author: Language as Ritual in Early Mīmāṃsā and Post-Modern Theology,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 55 (1987), 659-84.

• E. Frauwallner, Materialien zur ältesten Erkenntnislehre der Karmamīmāmṣā (Vienna: 1968).

• O. Gächter, Hermeneutics and Language in Pūrva Mīmāṃsā (Delhi: 1983).

• L. McCrea, “The Hierarchical Organization of Language in Mīmāṃsā Interpretive Theory,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 28 (2000), 429-59.

• J.A. Taber, “The Theory of the Sentence in Pūrva Mīmāṃsā and Western Philosophy,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 17 (1989), 407-30.

• J. Taber, A Hindu Critique of Buddhist Epistemology: Kumārila on Perception (London: 2005).

Thanks again to Elisa Freschi for help with this episode!