Can Mantras be Injunctions?

The source of most Vidhis are from the Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and maybe Upanishads. The Samhita texts are a collection of mantras to be chanted at a ritual, and often don't have injunctions that command a person "do this" or "don't do that" or "one should do this". Often they are prayers, spells, eulogies, and even stories or statements of reality. That being said, Vedic mantras are quoted in law digests as evdience for a certain practice, so it begs the question, can we construe injunctions from Vedic mantras? For the prupose of this article, mantras exclusively refer to Vedic mantras of the Samhitas. 

The Jaimini Mimamsa Sutras start by describing the oppenent view that the Mantras are useless in that they have no meaning, The sutras then go on to declare that they do have meaning like any sentence with subject, object, and verb [1]. Those meanings are as follows [2].

1) Description of the procedure while it is being (serving as a reminder

2) Praise or invocations to a Deity being worshipped 

3) In case of the mantra making no apparent sense, the mantra still does possess meaning, but it is unknown at present. 

Thus the mantras have meaning, but their main function to to bring about a transcendental result, but knowing that meaning is not needed so long as they are being pronounced currectly.  Hence teachers don't students the meaning of the mantras. [2].

The following is from the Mimamsa Nyaya Prakasha 239:

"239. And formulas (mantra) find their use in reminding us of something connected with the performance. But their recitation is not for the purpose of an unseen (transcendental) result. Because it is improper to assume an unseen result when a visible one is at hand. And the fact that the visible result (reminding of elements in the sacrifice) can be produced by other means does not make the recitation of the formulas purposeless. Because it depends on an injunction of fixation (necessary-arrangement) to the effect that the reminding must be done only by the formulas."[3]

The long story short is that mantras are statements that describe a vsisible detail of a ritual being performed, so as to remind the performer of said detail. Why would mantras remind the performer of a (visible) detail of a performance? Well, it is to specify down to the minute detail on how a ritual or an aspect of a ritual is performed. 

If that doesn;t still make sense, refer to the following from Mimamsa Nyaya Prakasha 243:

"243. But an injunction of something partially establisht is an injunction of fixation; as, “He beats the rìce” For by this injunction it is not meant to show that the beating is useful for removing the husks, since that is already establisht by positive and negative examples. 168 But rather it is a fixation, and supplies the unestablisht part. For since there are various (possible) ways of removing the husks, for the event that one should start to abandon beating and take some other means, since in that event beating would be unestablisht, this injunction simply supplies the unestablisht part, in enjoining that. And so in the injunction of fixation the meaning of the sentence is nothing but fixation, which consists in filling in the unestablisht part; it amounts to this, that it enjoins beating in the event of its being partially unestablisht; but there is not, as in the new injunetion, an injunction of something as (otherwise) entirely unestablisht." [3]

In the above example, a ritual requires rice to be dehusked. However, there are dozens of ways to dehusk a rice. Thus, when the mantra (it is a mantra?) says "he beats the rice", it means that for the ritual to work, the rice must be dehusked by beating them. Otherwise, they are as good as being unhusked. Admitedly, the main purpsoe of this paragraph was to show that for something that is not established, such as the exact manner of dehusking rice, this mantra will establish that. For a similar reason, a scriptural statement saying "one eats to survive" is not an injucntion because the requirement to eat for survival is an obvious given, and doesn't need a scriptural declaration.

Let us look at an example from the first few sentences from the Taittiriya Samhita 6.5.1.1:

"He makes a hall with beams pointing east. The gods and men divided the quarters, the gods (obtained) the eastern, the Pitrs the southern, men the western, the Rudras the northern. In that he makes a hall with beams pointing east, the sacrificer approaches the world of the gods. He covers it over, for the world of the gods is hidden from the world of men. 'It is not easy', they say, 'to go from this world; for who knows if he is in yonder world or not.' He makes at the corners apertures, for the winning of both worlds. He shaves his hair and beard, he trims his nails."

The above is regarding the performance of the Soma sacrifice. Notice that all these sentences are not in the optatative mood (i.e. bhavet) but in the simple present tense (i.e. bhavati).   

In fact the phrase "he makes a hall with beams pointing east" in the original Sanskrit version  is "प्राचीनवꣳशं करोति देवमनुष्या दिशो", where the verb karoti (करोति) is the regular present tense, and not in the optative (कुर्यात्, "he should make", "let him make", "he must make"). Even though this is not from a Brahmana text, if the man makes a hall in the Southern direction, then the ritual is not accomplished (even if we don't have a Brahmana text specifically commanding him to make a hall only in the East). 

Another type is Parisamkhya Vidhi, where if a text says something like "पञ्च पञ्चनखाः एव भक्ष्याः " meaning "only five (certain) five-nailed animals only are to be eaten", then what aver the 5 animals listed out are, those alone are allowed to be eaten, nothing more. A monkey is a five-nailed animal, but it is not mentioned in the list, so oen can't eat it.  The word "only" (एव), is what defines a Parisamkhya Vidhi.

Notice that none of these phrases are along the lines of "पञ्च पञ्चनखान् एव भक्षेत्​", "one may eat only the (following) five nailed animals", but the same meaning is derived. 

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Interuption:

The only problem I have to raise is that the form "भक्ष्य​" can mean "edible" or "should be eaten". 

Take the following phrases: 

1) सूर्यो वीक्ष्यः

2) सोमो वीक्ष्यः

They can mean:

1) The sun is seeable

2) The moon is seeable

But they can also mean:

1) The sun is to be seen

2) The moon is to be seen

The latter interpratation implies that one should look both at the sun and the moon, even though looking at the sun is harmful. The former interpratation is not an implied injunction, but rather a definition of objects that are visible. Hence, the statement "the sun is seeable" is not an injunction, but a statement syaing that in theory you can see the sun (if you simply look up in the sky at day time).  

End of tangent

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So to establish, we can construe injunctions from mantras, with the only detail being that the mantras only apply to the context that they chant. 

Hence the Mimamsa Nyaya Prakasha 248:

"248. Now when the formulas can fulfil their function of illuminating the meaning (of the performance) at the point where they are found in the text, they are to be applied at that same point. But when they cannot, then they are (their application is) to be transferred to a place where they can do so, as was explained in the case of the formulas of after-recitation to Pù§an. But where they cannot be applied anywhere, then, because there is no other way out, their recitation must be understood as having an invisible purpose. But in no case can it be admitted that they are meaningless." [3]

Admittedly, the above says to apply the mantras where they make sense to be used. I think we should also extrapolate to mean that the context of the mantras should be such that the mantras are rendered meaningful. So if a mantra says "a priest wearing a red cloth sacrifices", then we must do the ritual with the priest wearing a red cloth. One could argue for a de facto injunction saying "the priest must wear a red cloth and sacrifice".

This interpratation has precedent. 

Under Manu 3.34, Medhatithi writes in context of a girl who has been violated:

“Further, in the case of marrying such a girl, there would be a serious deficiency in the sacramental rites themselves. E.g., the rite of ‘conception’ has to be done with sacred texts, such as ‘Viṣṇuryoniṅkalpayatu, etc. (Ṛgveda, 10.184. 1),—which means ‘May Viṣṇu generate upon your generative organ;’ and there can be no ‘generation’ (by Viṣṇu) of what has already been generated’ (by another man); so that the use of the sacred text in this case would be meaningless. Nor could, any such text be used when an unmarried girl would be ‘approached’ in the ‘Paiśāca’ form; as it has been definitely declared that it is to be used only in the case of ‘married’ girls. Nor would it be right to hold that the ‘generation’ (spoken of in the said text) refers to the case of marriages other than the ‘Paiśāca;’ for the use of the text has been prescribed without any restriction at all.”

The girl in question is someone who has been violated (and hence is not a virgin in the classical sense). Medhatithi is explaining in the above passage why a women's (ritual) virginity is nit destroyed should she sucumb to this worst fate. This topic raised by Medhatithi is worthy for a seperate blog post.

What is important is a perticular logic he incidentally uses. Medhatithi cites the mantras for Garbadhana, the impregnation ritual, which say “may Vishnu generate upon your generative organ” (the husband recites this invoking the Vishnu in him), and the violated girl has her organ already generated on. Medhatithi concludes that the reciting of this mantra is futile. Hence, he implies that the girl is required to be a virgin for to partake in the Garbhadhana ceremony (so the mantra is rendered true).

Hence I propose we create a class of injunctions from mantras appropriately labled as "Construed Injunctions". 

The restriction I would like to add is that one can only construe injunctions from descriptive mantras only for the ritual they are applicable to and not elsewhere. So texts that mention that an animal is killed for a specific ritual cannot be used as justification for killing animals outside of said ritual. You would need a different text that explicitly allows you to kill an animal outside of a ritual. 

 

Citations

1) https://archive.org/details/mimamsasutra00jaimuoft/page/18/mode/2up?view=theater

2) https://www.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2005-October/015108.html

3) https://archive.org/stream/mimamsa-nyaya-prakasha/Mimamsa%20Nyaya%20Prakasha_djvu.txt