Vedânta-sûtras, which combine the two tasks of concisely stating the
teaching of the Veda, and of argumentatively establishing the special
interpretation of the Veda adopted in the Sûtras. This difference may be
accounted for by two reasons. In the first place, the contents of the
karmakâ/nd/a, as being of an entirely practical nature, called for
summaries such as the Kalpa-sûtras, 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
Vedânta-sûtras throughout presuppose the Pûrva Mîmâ/m/sâ-sûtras, and may
therefore dispense with the discussion of general principles and methods
already established in the latter.

The time at which the two Mîmâ/m/sâ-sûtras 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 Sûtras 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 Mîmâ/m/sâ-sûtras
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 Mîmâ/m/sâ-sûtras occupy,
however, an altogether exceptional position in point of style. All
Sûtras 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 Sûtras, 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