  It is important to note (what is sometimes overlooked) that the foregoing claims about the eternality of language and of the Vedas are logically independent of the epistemological position Kumārila has elaborated; the epistemological doctrine of “immediate justification” does not, that is, by itself support the claim that the Vedas are uniquely authoritative. While Kumārila’s epistemology may, then, by itself show that Vedic texts are justifiably credited as epistemically reliable (that, in other words, Mīmāṃsaka beliefs are rationally held), it is logically independent claims about the eternality of the Vedas that are taken by Mīmāṃsakas to warrant the stronger conclusion that Vedic injunctions are uniquely so. It is important to appreciate the independence of these positions from one another, and accordingly to note that the assessment of Kumārila’s epistemology (both traditionally and among modern scholars) is sometimes driven more by resistance to the eternality claim than to anything integral to Kumārila’s epistemology.