Kumārila Bhaṭṭa was a principal Mīmāṃsā commentator who defended Vedic authority and developed a distinctive account of the immediate validity of cognition.
Intellectual setting
Kumārila’s polemical and interpretive work sits within debates among Mīmāṃsā, Buddhist, and other Brahmanical theories of knowledge and language.
Key ideas
Intrinsic validity
Cognitions are initially justified unless a defeater establishes their falsity.
Bhāṭṭa interpretation
His readings of Śabara’s commentary formed the Bhāṭṭa branch of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā.
Legacy
His line became one of the two principal orientations of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā and shaped later Indian epistemology.