A speculative thread on sankarshakanda of mimamsa shastra: I have no intention to repeat the information that can be found on the net including Indologists' blogs. This site has links to soft copies of papers and books that can bring you up to speed. peterffreund.com/sankarsha/sank…
Quick context: The following facts should not be controversial.
1. There exists a genuine text called sankarshakanda with commentaries of devaswamin and bhaskaraya.
2. It's Jaimini's work of 4 chapters and supplement to the 12 chapter mimamsa sutra text by Jaimini.
1. There exists a genuine text called sankarshakanda with commentaries of devaswamin and bhaskaraya.
2. It's Jaimini's work of 4 chapters and supplement to the 12 chapter mimamsa sutra text by Jaimini.
3. It is conflated with other texts, especially by texts later than 10th century. Those texts go by sankarshana kanda or sankarshana sutra, devata kanda/daivi mimamsa and upasana kanda. Now the testimonies of these texts are garbled. Scholars just point out that
"The description given in these texts do not match the actual sankarshakanda". "We must wait for those texts to surface to form a proper judgement".
Given this is X and we're not publishing a paper, we should be allowed to speculate and arrive at a most probable theory of
Given this is X and we're not publishing a paper, we should be allowed to speculate and arrive at a most probable theory of
"Why there's so much confusion around sankarshakanda text"?
1. Are sankarshana, devatakanda and upasana kanda the same text? (None of these real sankarshakanda that's currently published).
2. Who is/are the author(s)? Jaimini, Vyasa, Sankarshanacharya, or Narada?
1. Are sankarshana, devatakanda and upasana kanda the same text? (None of these real sankarshakanda that's currently published).
2. Who is/are the author(s)? Jaimini, Vyasa, Sankarshanacharya, or Narada?
3. How did the confusion evolve? To arrive at a coherent picture, we'll use memetics and carefully look at the testimony of Prapanchahrdaya/PH, Sarvasiddhanta sangraha/SSS and sarvamata sangraha/SMS. PH is older than SSS, which is older than SMS (can be independently shown).
PH is attributed to Sankara (unlikely) as well as SSS which is impossible, though Diwan Bahadur Rangacharya, SSS translator very much wants it to be Shankara's work. These don't really matter for our purpose, but helps to anchor the texts on a timeline.
Let's identify our memetic units.
1. Mimamsa shastra is a 20 chapter text.
2. The split is 12 chapters tantrakanda, 4 chapters sankarshakanda (SK) and 4 chapters brahmakanda.
3. Jaimini is the author of SK
4. Vyasa is the author of SK
5. SK is devatakanda
1. Mimamsa shastra is a 20 chapter text.
2. The split is 12 chapters tantrakanda, 4 chapters sankarshakanda (SK) and 4 chapters brahmakanda.
3. Jaimini is the author of SK
4. Vyasa is the author of SK
5. SK is devatakanda
6. SK is vyasa's description of mantras taught by sankarshana.
7. Narada is the author of devata/upasanakanda which is SK
8. Kashakrtsna is the author of devata/upasanakanda which is SK.
7. Narada is the author of devata/upasanakanda which is SK
8. Kashakrtsna is the author of devata/upasanakanda which is SK.
Just like an evolution of a single-celled to a complex creature, we trace the most simple meme "Mimamsa is a chapter of 20 chapters" and see how it got complicated. Must be careful on testimony from a late text about a claim it makes about author who lived millennia ago.
To be continued...
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