ABSTRACT
This introductory chapter begins with an overview of the nature of scholarship concerning the Mīmāṃsā tradition. The overview highlights that the marginal scholarship on Mīmāṃsā generally seeks to distance itself from the ritual concerns elaborated in the Mīmāṃsāsūtras, as it is perceived as an ‘orthodoxy’ of Vedic Brahmanical ‘ritualism’. This sidelining of the ritual concerns limits the significance of their studies primarily in that they were unable to explore the central concern of Jaimini’s enquiry – a conception of dharma that sought to validate the intelligibility of the Vedic practice of sacrifice. It is within the context of this background that a hermeneutical re-reading of the Mīmāṃsāsūtras is then proposed, whose two overarching aims include: (a) to demonstrate the significance of Jaiminian enquiry by explicating the unique conception of dharma in light of the internal concern of ritual and tradition, and (b) to offer insights to the scholarship on ritual, as a way to indicate the contemporary relevance of Jaiminian enquiry. This chapter concludes with an introduction of the manner in which the two traditions of enquiry, namely the Mīmāṃsā tradition and the academic study of ritual, are brought together in conversation, thereby introducing the dialogical method that builds upon the works of post-Heideggerian hermeneutics.
