Abstract
The Mīmāṃsā school of Indian philosophy elaborated complex ways of interpreting the prescriptive portions of the Vedic sacred texts. The present article is the result of the collaboration of a group of scholars of logic, computer science, European philosophy and Indian philosophy and aims at the individuation and analysis of the deontic system which is applied but never explicitly discussed in Mīmāṃsā texts. The article outlines the basic distinction between three sorts of principles —hermeneutic, linguistic and deontic. It proposes a mathematical formalization of the deontic principles and uses it to discuss a well-known example of seemingly conflicting statements, namely the prescription to undertake the malefic Śyena sacrifice and the prohibition to perform any harm.
Highlights
The Mīmāṃsā school of Indian philosophy elaborated complex ways of interpreting the prescriptive portions of the Vedic sacred texts
The present article is the result of the collaboration of a group of scholars of logic, computer science, European philosophy and Indian philosophy and aims at the individuation and analysis of the deontic system which is applied but never explicitly discussed in Mīmāṃsā texts
The article outlines the basic distinction between three sorts of principles —hermeneutic, linguistic and deontic. It proposes a mathematical formalization of the deontic principles and uses it to discuss a well-known example of seemingly conflicting statements, namely the prescription to undertake the malefic Śyena sacrifice and the prohibition to perform any harm
Summary
Like most Indian philosophical schools, the Mīmāṃsā school has a fundamental text and a fundamental commentary on it. The first extant text of the Mīmāṃsā school of Indian philosophy, the so-called Pūrva Mīmāṃsā Sūtra ( PMS1), can be approximately dated to the last centuries BCE. Mīmāṃsā authors considered prescriptions to be the real core of the Brāhmaṇas and interpreted the latter categories as subsidiary to prescriptions This means that the content conveyed by the Vedas as conceived by Mīmāṃsakas is, primarily, what must be done (kārya). In order to fulfil their hermeneutical task, Mīmāṃsā thinkers could not resort to the intention of the author of the Vedas They developed nyāyas ‘interpretative rules’ which should guide a reader or listener through a prescriptive text and enable his or her understanding of the text independently of any authorial intention. We analyze the well-known controversy involving the prescription concerning the Śyena sacrifice, which was supposed to harm the enemies of the performer, and the prohibion to harm any living being
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