01Dharma is known from the Veda

Jaimini begins: athato dharma jijnasa, now the inquiry into dharma. The second sutra defines it: dharma is that good which is made known by the Vedic injunction, codana. Perception cannot show it, nor inference. So the Veda is the authority, eternal and authorless, and the whole darshana becomes a science of reading sentences: which word commands, which praises, which explains, and how a rite stated in one place is carried over to another.

02Jaimini of the Samaveda

When Maharshi Vyasa divided the one Veda into four, the Puranas say, he gave the Rigveda to Paila, the Yajurveda to Vaishampayana, the Atharvaveda to Sumantu and the Samaveda to Jaimini. The Jaiminiya shakha of the Samaveda, still chanted by a few families in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, carries his name. The same Jaimini composed the sutras of Purva Mimamsa, the first inquiry, into the karma kanda of the Veda. Tradition counts twenty lakshanas, chapters, of one Mimamsa: Jaimini's twelve, the four of the Sankarsha Kanda, and the four of Badarayana's Brahma Sutras.

03Why the Veda needs no author

Sutra 1.1.4 says perception grasps only what is present to the senses, so it cannot show dharma, which concerns what is yet to be done. The next sutra makes the great claim: the relation between a word and its meaning is autpattika, inborn, not set up by any person. A word's power to mean is eternal, so a text made of such words, handed down without break and with no author remembered, cannot err through an author's fault. That is the Mimamsa ground for calling the Veda apaurusheya, and the reason a mistake of a single svara in recitation was taken so seriously in every Vedic household.

04Five kinds of Vedic sentence

Mimamsa sorts every Vedic sentence into five kinds. Vidhi is the injunction, as in "jyotishtomena svargakamo yajeta", one who desires svarga should sacrifice with the Jyotishtoma. Mantra is recited during the rite and reminds the performer of what he is doing. Namadheya is the name of a rite. Nishedha forbids. Arthavada praises or blames, and its purpose, says Mimamsa, is to move the hearer toward the vidhi or away from the forbidden. A long passage telling how the devas won by a certain rite is arthavada; its point lies in the injunction it supports. Every Vedic sentence, so read, has a use.

05Six ways of knowing

Kumarila's school accepts six pramanas. To the four of Nyaya it adds arthapatti, postulation, and anupalabdhi, knowing an absence by not perceiving it. The stock example of arthapatti: Devadatta is fat, yet he does not eat by day, so he must eat at night. Prabhakara accepts five, all but anupalabdhi. Both schools hold that knowledge is valid of itself, svatah pramanya, and is doubted only when a defect is found. This lets the Veda stand as valid on its own, with no need for proof from outside. Advaita Vedanta took over the Bhatta pramanas almost whole, by the maxim that in worldly matters one follows the Bhattas.

06Shabara, Kumarila, Prabhakara

Shabara Svamin's bhashya is the oldest commentary in full. On it two schools grew: Kumarila Bhatta's, through his Shloka Varttika and Tantra Varttika, and Prabhakara's, through the Brihati. Kumarila's defence of the Veda's authority is famous across Bharat, and the Shankara Digvijaya tells of Adi Shankaracharya meeting him at Prayag as he lay on a slow-burning husk fire. Mandana Mishra, whom Shankaracharya met in debate, was of this school.

07Learning Mimamsa

Nobody starts with 2,700 sutras. The beginner reads Laugakshi Bhaskara's Arthasangraha or Apadeva's Mimamsa Nyaya Prakasha, short manuals that explain vidhi, mantra and arthavada with examples. Then comes Madhava Vidyaranya's Jaiminiya Nyayamala, which states each adhikarana in a verse or two, and only then Shabara with Kumarila. Each adhikarana has five steps: the subject, the doubt, the prima facie view, the conclusion, and its connection to what came before. The Mimamsa maxims, the nyayas, are quoted all through Sanskrit learning: the rule that the later prevails over the earlier, or that a general rule yields to a specific one.

08In courts and in rituals

Mimamsa's rules for reading a text became the rules for reading Dharmashastra too. Vijnaneshvara's Mitakshara settles legal questions with Mimamsa maxims, and Indian judges have cited them in interpreting statutes. In the Shrauta households of Kerala, Andhra and Maharashtra that still kindle the three fires, the procedure of each yajna follows the decisions worked out in these twelve adhyayas. Jaimini's Purva Mimamsa and Badarayana's Uttara Mimamsa, the Brahma Sutras, are read as the two halves of one inquiry into the Veda.

What it contains

1
Adhyaya 1: Pramana
The sources of dharma are weighed: the Veda first, then smriti and the conduct of the good, which are valid where they do not conflict with the Veda. The eternity of the word is defended, and the five kinds of Vedic sentence are worked out.
2
Adhyaya 2: Bheda
How one rite is told apart from another: by a different verb, by repetition, by number, by name, by material, by context. Without these rules no one could say whether two passages describe one yajna or two.
3
Adhyaya 3: Shesha
Which acts are subsidiary to which, and the six means of deciding it, from direct statement (shruti) to the name. The order of these six means, each stronger than the next, became one of the most quoted rules in Sanskrit interpretation.
4
Adhyaya 4: Prayojaka
What purpose prompts each act: whether it serves the rite or serves the man who performs it. The adhyaya also settles which results belong to which rites.
5
Adhyaya 5: Krama
The order in which acts are performed, decided by six means: the Shruti's words, the sense, the order of reading, position, the main act, and the order of starting. A priest at the altar needs this before anything else.
6
Adhyaya 6: Adhikara
Who is entitled to perform a rite, and with what qualifications. The adhyaya discusses the householder and his wife performing together, and what to do when a prescribed material is unavailable.
7
Adhyayas 7–8: Atidesha
How the details of a model rite, the prakriti, transfer to its variants, the vikritis. A rite described in a single line in the Veda receives its full procedure from its model by this extension.
8
Adhyaya 9: Uha
How mantras are adapted when a rite is transferred, for example changing the name of the deity or the number of a word to fit the new rite. The rules of this uha are exact, so that no mantra is altered beyond need.
9
Adhyaya 10: Badha
When a transferred detail is set aside because it has no purpose in the new rite, or because something else replaces it. Badha keeps extension from turning into mechanical copying.
10
Adhyayas 11–12: Tantra and Prasanga
When one act serves several rites at once (tantra), and when an act done for one rite benefits another incidentally (prasanga). With these the twelve adhyayas close the whole science of the rite.

Famous verses

अथातो धर्मजिज्ञासा
Now, therefore, the inquiry into dharma.Mimamsa Sutra 1.1.1

चोदनालक्षणोऽर्थो धर्मः
Dharma is the good that is made known by the Vedic injunction.Mimamsa Sutra 1.1.2

सत्सम्प्रयोगे पुरुषस्येन्द्रियाणां बुद्धिजन्म तत्प्रत्यक्षमनिमित्तं विद्यमानोपलम्भनत्वात्
Perception is the knowledge that arises when a person's senses are in contact with what exists. It is not a means of knowing dharma, because it grasps only what is present.Mimamsa Sutra 1.1.4

औत्पत्तिकस्तु शब्दस्यार्थेन सम्बन्धस्तस्य ज्ञानमुपदेशोऽव्यतिरेकश्चार्थेऽनुपलब्धे तत्प्रमाणं बादरायणस्यानपेक्षत्वात्
The relation of a word to its meaning is inborn. The Vedic teaching is the means of knowing dharma; it does not fail regarding things not otherwise perceived. It is a valid means, for it depends on nothing else. So holds Badarayana as well.Mimamsa Sutra 1.1.5

Influence

Shabara, Kumarila Bhatta and Prabhakara built its schools; its rules of interpretation govern Dharmashastra and Vedanta alike.