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270 The Purva Mimamsa philosophy was, however, merely a philosophy of Vedic rites, and a supplementary system of philosophy was therefore required, this want being supplied by the Uttara Mimamsa or Vedanta. It is the Vedanta which tells us of the Supreme Being, the Universal Soul, the Pervading Breath, as the Purva Mimamsa speaks of rites and sacrifices. The Vedanta is the direct outcome of the Upanishads, as the Purva Mimamsa is the outcome of the Brahmanas, and the two schools of Mimamsa taken together represent orthodox Vedic Hinduism, both in its rites and observances, and in its belief. The two schools taken together were an answer to Buddhist heretics who ignored Vedic rites and denied a Supreme Being, as well as to the agnostic Sankhya system of philosophy, and to other systems which proclaimed the eternity of matter, and thus, when combined, they form the basis of true Hinduism. The great text-book of the Vedanta is the Sariraka Mimamsa Sutra, or Brahma Sutra, which is attributed to Badarayana Vyasa, and which cannot have been compiled very long before the Christian Era.

The Vedanta adopts the syllogism of the Nyaya system, with the obvious improvement of reducing its five members to three, as in the syllogism of Aristotle.

Badarayana's Brahma Sutra is divided into four lectures, and each lecture is subdivided into four chapters. It opens precisely as the Purva Mimamsa, announcing its purport in the very same terms, except that it substitutes Brahma, or God, for Dharma, or