Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/324



PURVA MIMAMSA AND VEDANTA

E now come to the last two systems of the philosophy of the Hindus, the Purva Mimamsa of Jaimini and the Uttara Mimamsa of Badarayana Vyasa. To the historian of India they are of the utmost importance and value, for the Mimamsa schools represent the conservative phase of the Hindu mind at a time when philosophers and laymen were alike drifting towards agnostic and heterodox opinions. Sankhya philosophy led hosts of thinking men away from the teachings of the Upanishads on the Universal Soul; and the Buddhist religion was embraced by many of the lower classes as a relief from caste inequalities and elaborate Vedic rites. Against this general movement of the day the Mimamsa schools made a stand. The Purva Mimamsa insisted on those Vedic rites and practices which later philosophers had come to regard as useless or even as unholy; and the Uttara Mimamsa proclaimed the doctrine of the Universal Soul which the Rh