Thinker · TH-0261
Kumārila Bhaṭṭa
Kumārila Bhaṭṭa was an Indian philosopher of the Mīmāṃsā school, active around the seventh century, whose commentaries on Śabara's commentary on the Mīmāṃsā Sūtra…
कुमारिल भट्ट
Also known as Kumarila Bhatta, Kumārila
fl. c. 660 CE · India (traditional accounts of his region differ)
Traditions: Indian
Schools: Mimamsa
Kumārila Bhaṭṭa was an Indian philosopher of the Mīmāṃsā school, active around the seventh century, whose commentaries on Śabara's commentary on the Mīmāṃsā Sūtra founded the Bhāṭṭa branch of the school. He defended the intrinsic validity of cognitions: a cognition is to be accepted as true unless defeated. He also argued that the Veda has no author, human or divine, so it is free of the defects that undermine authored testimony. His exact dates and region are uncertain.
Key ideas
- Cognitions are intrinsically valid (svataḥ prāmāṇya): they are accepted as true unless defeated by contrary evidence.
- The Veda is authorless (apauruṣeya) and eternal, and so free of the flaws of human authors.
- No person, including a supposedly omniscient teacher, can be a source of knowledge of dharma beyond the Veda.
- Absence (non-apprehension) and postulation (arthāpatti) are distinct means of knowledge.
Major works
- Ślokavārttika (verse commentary on Śabara's Bhāṣya)
- Tantravārttika
- Ṭupṭīkā
In the conversation
- Question Are the words of the Veda abstract objects? Mīmāṃsā’s eternal language and Frege’s third realm
- Discussion Kūkai and Bhartṛhari: when a word is part of what is real rather than a label for it
- Question Why do scholars keep saying “duty” is a bad translation of dharma?
- Discussion Udayana, Ibn Sina and Leibniz: three arguments for a first cause that do not need a beginning
- Question What is apoha, and how can a word mean something by excluding everything else?
- Question One source of knowledge, two, four, five or six? Why Indian schools argued over the count
- Discussion Does a language model mean anything by what it writes?
- Question How is apoha supposed to work? ‘Cow’ means ‘not non-cow’ sounds circular to me
- Discussion Dignāga’s apoha and Frege’s sense are answers to different questions
- Debate Memory preserves knowledge but never produces it: the Indian schools were right to exclude it
- Debate The KK principle is false: you can know something without knowing that you know it
- Discussion Kumārila said a cognition is valid until shown otherwise. Is that internalism or externalism?
- Question What are Udayana’s arguments for God, and whom was he arguing against?
- Discussion “A hundred scriptures cannot make fire cold”: Śaṅkara’s rule for when scripture and perception collide
- Discussion A scripture with no author: what Mīmāṃsā does to the intention debate
- Discussion Devadatta is fat but never eats by day: is Mīmāṃsā “postulation” just inference to the best explanation?
- Debate Every cognition should be trusted until something defeats it: the Mīmāṃsakas were right
- Debate Predicate logic was discovered, not invented
- Question What is apoha, and does defining by exclusion help with the frog-and-fly problem?
In the Journal
On the map
The questions in The Coordinates of Thought where Kumārila Bhaṭṭa takes a place.
- 2.2.5 Revelation Can something be known because it was disclosed rather than discovered?