ABSTRACT
Starting with the problematic of meaning in the study of ritual, this chapter introduces Jaimini’s pursuit of dharma primarily by looking at the theme of desire and subjectivity, as it relates to the practice of sacrifice. It claims that the debate concerning the question of meaning in the scholarship on ritual is limited because the ritual actant and his impulse towards meaning in the practice of sacrifice are not taken into consideration. This claim is used to argue, through a detour on the problem of the invisible and Heidegger’s phenomenology of religion, that the tradition-constituted subjectivity can serve as the mode through which the invisible – the invisibility of meaning and the telos of tradition – is revealed. It further argues that Jaimini’s insistence on the introduction of dharma as the telos of the Mīmāṃsā tradition, particularly in light of the disintegration of the foundations of the Vedic world of sacrifice around the period in which the Mīmāṃsāsūtras were formulated, disclosed his concern for developing a rationale for the continuation of the traditionary practice of sacrifice. This disclosing, in turn, enabled the explication of the constitution of the Mīmāṃsā subject. The understanding of the invisible as a human existentiale allows an account of Vedic sacrifice as a traditionary practice that is intrinsically meaningful, and which is accessible primarily through the ritual subjectivity (desiring subject) upon which it is ultimately grounded.
