The central verbal import of injunctive statements, according to the followers of Bhatta School of Mimamsakas (ritualists) is referred to as Bhavana (Shabdi and Arthi). In ancient Hindu world, Naiyayikas (logicians), Vaiyakaranas (grammarians) and Mimamsakas (ritualists) have made significant contributions to the field of study of language, especially Vedic.
The Mimamsakas subscribed to the view that a source of
knowledge can be considered so only when it is exclusive to the information conveyed
or happens to be a primary source. Mimamsakas decreed that the injunctive
statements alone among verbal knowledge can be considered the source of
knowledge. So, they analyzed the nature of imperative and operative forms. Then
there arises a question, whether a verb conveys only an action or an activity
that produces an effect. If so, then how and by what elements such information
as means of accomplishment, method of accomplishment, and the result, etc., are
conveyed and comprehended because an action being tiresome cannot be the end result
or the desired end according to them. The Mimamsakas do not prefer to analyze
the verb ‘shall go’ as ‘a person is required to undergo the action of going’
but as ‘the person shall accomplish reaching the destination by going.’ The
action of going, which is treated as the object in the analysis of the verb ‘shall
go’, cannot be the object because it causes tiresomeness and hence cannot be
desired object generally. So they try to interpret it as an instrument of
accomplishment.
An injunction always has two key players. The first is the
person who makes or wants a certain thing to happen and the second is he who is
inclined to bring that to fruition. The first is referred to as bhavayitr
(causal form from the Sanskrit root bhu meaning ‘to be’) and in the case of
Vedic injunctions, this maker or director is said to be Vedic texts themselves –
as they are ‘apaurusheya, uncomposed, eternal. Since the activity of making others
act lies in words, it is called shabdi bhavana (verbal creative energy). Its
object is action itself and is known through the optative suffix helped by
arhtavada (eulogistic statements). All these form one single verbal unit,
expressed as answers for the triad of Sanskrit interrogative pronouns kim
(what), kena (by which), and katham (how). The person thus forced to be
inclined to an activity puts into practice and brings the effect into force. So
the latter is called arthibhavana (creative energy) conducive to the
realization of purpose. Artha here means purpose.
Being creative energy or a productive force, it too requires
three things represented by three Sanskrit interrogative pronouns kim (what), kena
(by which), and katham (how). In the case of arthibhavana, the Sadhya (result)
is some desire ‘reaching heaven’, sadhana (instrument), yajna (sacrifice) and
the like; and itikartavyata, all the subsidiaries or the activities that
constitute the sacrifice.
According to them, injunction means a complete statement
consisting of optative or imperative suffixes and not merely the suffixes themselves.