276 DR J. muir's account of the 



This is not to be wondered at, as the most ancient and sacred writings of the 

 Hindus do not express themselves with any positiveness on questions of this de- 

 scription, but on the contrary (as we have seen in the quotations taken from 

 some of the hymns) give frequent utterance to doubts and difficulties, as was 

 indeed to be expected of simple men, such as their authors were, groping after 

 truth, and unconscious of any supernatural illumination. 



Without attempting to arrange these systems in chronological order, I shall 

 give some account of their leading objects and principles. 



I begin with the Purva Mimansa, which professes to supply the proper 

 principles and rules for interpreting and applying the ceremonial portion of the 

 Veda, but does not pretend to do more than direct the student to the attainment 

 of those future rewards which follow the performance of duty ; differing in this 

 respect from the other five orthodox systems, which propose to themselves the 

 higher object of pointing out the methods by which the soul may be liberated 

 from all future connection with the body, and with mundane concerns, and may 

 so arrive at absolute and final perfection. In pursuance of its design, the Mi- 

 mansa defines the various modes by which duty may be ascertained and estab- 

 lished ; and as the Veda is the only ultimate authority for duty, it endeavours to 

 show that this authority is supernatural and infallible, by maintaining, not that 

 it has been revealed by the Deity, but that no human or personal author of 

 it is remembered ; and further, by arguing that sound is eternal, that the con- 

 nection between words and the objects they denote is also eternal (and not 

 arbitrary or conventional), and that consequently the Vedas convey unerring 

 information in regard to unseen objects. It is curious that this system, which 

 teaches a future state of rewards and punishments, should yet be understood by 

 one school of its adherents in an atheistic sense. It appears from a statement 

 made by Sankara Acharyya, the famous commentator on the Vedanta 

 aphorisms, that, according to the Purva Mimansa, ceremonies have an inherent 

 power of procuring rewards; and that (whether the founder of that school 

 acknowledged a Deity or not), he did not regard the realisation of future 

 beatitude as at all dependent on his will. 



As I have already intimated, the other systems, the Sankhya, Yoga, Nyaya, 

 Vaiseshika, and Uttara Mimansa or Vedanta, seek to accomplish a higher end than 

 the Purva Mimansa. Though differing from each other in various other respects, 

 they all rest upon one hypothesis, and propose to themselves one and the same 

 general object. The supposition on which they proceed is, that the soul, after 

 it has once become involved in a mundane condition, must go through an endless 

 cycle of transmigrations (its happiness or misery being in each case proportioned 

 to its merits or demerits in the preceding birth), until some means of disengaging 

 it from all connection with the body shall have been discovered. All embodied 

 existence is regarded by the Indian philosopher as a state of imperfection. The 



