Four Mīmāṃsā Views Concerning the Self’s Perception of Itself

Abstract

The article concerns a mediaeval Indian debate over whether, and if so how, we can know that a self (ātman) exists, understood here as a subject of cognition (jnātṛ) that outlives individual cognitions, being their common substrate. A passage that has not yet been translated from Sanskrit into a European language, from Jayanta Bhaṭṭa’s Nyāyamanjarī (c. 890 CE), ‘Blossoms of Reasoning’, is examined. This rich passage reveals something not yet noted in secondary literature, namely that Mīmāṃsakas advanced four different models of what happens when the self perceives itself. The article clarifies the differences between the four, and the historical and logical relationships between them. It also hypothesizes pressures that constituted the need for the creation of the newer views, i.e. perceived problems with the earlier views, which the proponents of the newer views saw themselves as overcoming.