interpretation of the Veda adopted in the Sutras. This difference may be
accounted for by two reasons. In the first place, the contents of the
karmaka/nd/a, as being of an entirely practical nature, called for
summaries such as the Kalpa-sutras, from which all burdensome
discussions of method are excluded; while there was no similar reason
for the separation of the two topics in the case of the purely
theoretical science of Brahman. And, in the second place, the
Vedanta-sutras throughout presuppose the Purva Mima/m/sa-sutras, and may
therefore dispense with the discussion of general principles and methods
already established in the latter.

The time at which the two Mima/m/sa-sutras were composed we are at
present unable to fix with any certainty; a few remarks on the subject
will, however, be made later on. Their outward form is that common to
all the so-called Sutras which aims at condensing a given body of
doctrine in a number of concise aphoristic sentences, and often even
mere detached words in lieu of sentences. Besides the Mima/m/sa-sutras
this literary form is common to the fundamental works on the other
philosophic systems, on the Vedic sacrifices, on domestic ceremonies, on
sacred law, on grammar, and on metres. The two Mima/m/sa-sutras occupy,
however, an altogether exceptional position in point of style. All
Sutras aim at conciseness; that is clearly the reason to which this
whole species of literary composition owes its existence. This their aim
they reach by the rigid exclusion of all words which can possibly be
spared, by the careful avoidance of all unnecessary repetitions, and, as
in the case of the grammatical Sutras, by the employment of an
arbitrarily coined terminology which substitutes single syllables for
entire words or combination of words. At the same time the manifest
intention of the Sutra writers is to express themselves with as much
clearness as the conciseness affected by them admits of. The aphorisms
are indeed often concise to excess, but not otherwise intrinsically
obscure, the manifest care of the writers being to retain what is
essential in a given phrase, and to sacrifice only what can be supplied,
although perhaps not without difficulty, and an irksome strain of memory
and reflection. Hence the possibility of understanding without a
commentary a very considerable portion at any rate of the ordinary
Sutras. Altogether different is the case of the two Mima/m/sa-sutras.
There scarcely