buddhism vs pUrva mImAmsa

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Mon, 2 Jul 2001, Sankaran Aniruddhan wrote:

> namaste,
>
> I think kumarila bhatta and not Sankara is credited with
> centering arguments mainly against buddhism. If I remember
> right, Sankara is supposed to have mainly argued against
> purva mimamsa. Now, if buddhism is very close
> dialectically to advaita, how is it possible that kumarila
> bhatta, who was a purva mimamsaka, could defeat buddhism
> and then a century or two later, Sankara could defeat
> purva mimamsa? Does it just depend on the intellect of the
> people arguing? I request members to clarify.
>

If you look carefully, Advaita Vedanta accepts many Purva Mimamsa tenets
in toto.  Specifically what it rejects is the Mimamsaka idea that the
ultimate goal of life is Heaven achieved by performance of Karmas.  That
goal is ok for ordinary people but the wise man should go beyond that.
So it is not so much that Advaita Vedanta defeats Purva Mimamsa, but
sidesteps it.  Many of the famous later Mimamsakas were also Advaitins.

--
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>