The Origins of the Debate

Abstract

This chapter lays out the prehistory of the book’s main controversy. Sequence is not mentioned in the Mīmāṃsāsūtra, and the precedence of earlier over later is only rarely invoked by its commentator, Śabara. Śabara’s follower Kumārila Bhaṭṭa develops the most important argument for why earlier should be stronger than later in cases of contradiction. For the founder of Nondualist Vedānta, Śaṅkara, sequential priority was not at all a factor; his emphasis is not on how either beginning or ending could overrule the other, but on harmony between them as one of several factors that direct the ideal reader toward the correct interpretation of the Veda. Madhva, founder of Dualist Vedānta, introduced a sequential priority in which later overcomes earlier, seemingly by misreading or misrepresenting an earlier list of such factors compiled by one of Śaṅkara’s important followers, Prakāśātman. With this provocative inversion, our debate begins in earnest.