The problem that made the Mimansakas particularly keen on settling the nature of the Vedic gods was somewhat peculiar, and not without interest from the point of view of the history of religion.

 

Now, the Vedic literature not only mentions the Vedic gods but also positively prescribes certain actions in relation to them. In the Vedic terminology, these acts are called yajnas. The word yajna is usually rendered as sacrifice, which means either the slaughter of animals or the surrender of a possession to a god for the purpose of pleasing him.Thus the logic behind the rendering of yajna as sacrifice is clear; assuming the religious character of the whole of the Vedas, the only aim of the acts prescribed in these in relation to the gods can be to please them or invoke their favour by offering something to them.

But it was precisely such an idea that the Mimansakas wanted vigorously to reject. From their point of view, the understanding of yajna as sacrifice is illegitmate, even absurd. The nearest equivalent of the word yajna acceptable to the Mimansa standpoint is ritual; but this ritual has nothing to do with prayer, propitiation, and worship, nothing to do with pleasing the gods or invoking their favour. As an act, is is intended to obtain certain results no doubt.But the results ae supposed to come from the inherent efficacy of the act itself. Hence, there is no scope for divine intervention in any form between the performance of the act and the attainment of the result. The whole process is rigidly determined, and determined by the inner logic of the act itself. The yajnas were not sacrifices--not prayers and propitiations. On the contrary, these were acts which by their intrinsic efficacy led to the designed results.

In defense of their outlook, the Mimansakas went to the extent of denying the validity of the Vedic gods.The question that interested them vitally was: How are we to understand the exact nature of the Vedic yajnas in relation to the Vedic devas i.e. the Vedic rituals in relation to the Vedic gods? Were the gods primary, and the rituals secondary, so that the rituals were nothing but acts of worshipping the gods?As a matter of fact, argued the Mimansakas, the reverse was the case.

But if so, what was after all the status of the gods themselves? The Mimansakas discussed the question threadbare and came to the conclusion that the actual status of the gods was that of mere words i.e. in modern terminology, of mere sounds forming part of the ritual spell.

Incidentially, the main discussion of the nature of the Vedic gods is to be found in the Mimansa sutra ix.1.6-10 and Sabara's commentary on these.

The Upanisads--far from helping the Mimansakas in their philosophical enterprise--create for them a formidable problem. They find it impossible to deny the fact that the Upanisads form part of the Veda and since from their own standpoing the Veda is absolutely valid, they cannot just disown the authoritativeness of the Upanisads. They also find it impossible to to accept the philosophical position that of the Upanisads: the dominant trend of Upanisadic speculations is pronouncedly idealistic while the idealist outlook goes completely against the defense of the ritual acts and its presupposition. What, then, can the Mimansakas do with the actual contents of the Upanisads? The only alternative they are left with is to explain these away ingeniously.

There can be nothing in the Veda, argue the Mimansakas, that is not connected with ritual or injunctions for its performance. If, therefore, the prima facie meaning of any Vedic passage does not convey such an idea, the passage itself has to be understood in an indirect sense of some kind of roundabout glorification of the Vedic ritual.