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Origins. The pursuit of knowledge in ancient India was, in the earliest period now intellectually
accessible to us, i.e. in the oldest extant literature, the Vedic tradition, carried on within the framework
of religion. Veda itself means 'knowledge' and represented an accu- mulation of knowledge handed
down among the priests. This 'knowl- edge' consisted largely of myths and descriptions of the gods, a
good deal of ritual for securing desired ends and some admixture of human historical traditions in
process of being assimilated to myth. 'Philoso- phy' as opposed to myth can perhaps be traced from
certain expres- sions of doubt, suggesting the possibility of more rational methods of enquiry than the
poetic intuition which creates myths, in these Vedic texts. Doubts are expressed about the existence
of some of the gods, and especially about the origin of the universe (cosmogony), concern- ing which
there are several conflicting accounts already in the Rguedasamhita, the oldest part of the Veda. The
origin is explained in terms of myth, or of ritual, or of more abstract and rationalistic speculation
beginning with 'nothing', 'neither being nor nothing', etc. These more abstract speculations are
developed further in the later parts of the Veda and especially in the latest part, the Upanisads, where
a great variety of views is expounded more systematically, pro- viding starting points for the various
schools of Brahmanical philoso- phy. All the Brahmanical schools start from the Veda as accepted
tradition or scripture, whence they are also known as Vaidika (Vedic) schools, though they differ in
their attitudes to it. (It must be emphasised that the properly Vedic Upanisads are only five in number,
probably representing the period about 900 to 600 B.C.; all other Upanisads, and there are many, are
later than this and are spread over many centuries of time, reflecting all kinds of later schools of
philosophy.)

The Mimams can be called the most Brahmanical (or 'ortho- dox' from the Brahmanical point of view),
most Vedic school, since its professed aim is simply to systematise the doctrine of the Veda, not to
add to it nor to argue independently of it. As it later clarified its position it held that the Veda is the
only source of the kind of knowledge that really matters, the application of which can lead to

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