s, particularly the
Mima@msists strove to prove that they were not written by anyone,
and had no beginning in time nor end and were eternal.
Their authority was not derived from the authority of any
trustworthy person or God. Their words are valid in themselves.
Evidently a discussion on these matters has but little value with
us, though it was a very favourite theme of debate in the old
days of India. It was in fact the most important subject for
Mima@msa, for the _Mima@msa sutras_ were written for the purpose
of laying down canons for a right interpretation of the Vedas.
The slight extent to which it has dealt with its own epistemological
doctrines has been due solely to their laying the foundation
of its structure of interpretative maxims, and not to
writing philosophy for its own sake. It does not dwell so much
upon salvation as other systems do, but seeks to serve as a
rational compendium of maxims with the help of which the
Vedas may be rightly understood and the sacrifices rightly performed.
But a brief examination of the doctrine of word (_s'abda_)
as a means of proof cannot be dispensed with in connection with
Mima@msa as it is its very soul.

S'abda (word) as a prama@na means the knowledge that we
get about things (not within the purview of our perception) from
relevant sentences by understanding the meaning of the words of
which they are made up. These sentences may be of two kinds,
viz. those uttered by men and those which belong to the Vedas.
The first becomes a valid means of knowledge when it is not

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uttered by untrustworthy persons and the second is valid in
itself. The meanings of words are of course known to us
before, and cannot therefore be counted as a means of proof;
but the meanings of sentences involving a knowledge of the
relations of words cannot be known by any other acknowledged
means of proof, and it is for this that we have to accept s`abda
as a separate means of proof. Even if it is admitted that the
validity of any sentence may be inferred on the ground of its
being uttered by a trustworthy person, yet that would not
explain how we understand the meanings of sentences, for when
even the name or person of a writer or speaker is not known,
we have no difficulty in understanding the meaning of any
sentence.

Prabhakara thinks that all sounds are in the form of letters,
or are understandable as combinations of letters. The constituent
letters of a word however cannot yield any m