  Of course, there are, in addition to the foregoing philosophical considerations in favor of Kumārila’s epistemology, specifically Mīmāṃsaka concerns driving the project. In this regard, Pārthasārathi has a particularly cogent point in favor of the interpretation on which Kumārila has, as suggested above, effectively reversed the standard order of epistemological explanation. Thus, Pārthasārathi urges that Mīmāṃsakas cannot proceed on the assumption that Kumārila meant to ask about the status only of pramāṇas (i.e., only of those cognitions that are already known to be veridical); for that would effectively disqualify the Vedas from coming under the purview of this discussion, since Mīmāṃsā’s opponents will not grant that the Vedas count as epistemically reliable (as a pramāṇa) in the first place. Indeed, whether or not we are entitled to think the Vedas epistemically reliable is just the issue in question; it would therefore be to little avail to ask how it is simply that cognitions already known to be reliable have the status they do, since it must first be established that Vedic injunction is a rational basis for action in the first place. And the only way to further this goal, Pārthasārathi argues, is to show that all contentful cognitions (even those that turn out not to have been veridical) should be recognized as immediately conferring justification. Aptly expressing the reversed direction of epistemological explanation commended by this interpretation, William Alston has asked to similar effect: if a subject “were not often really perceiving X why should the experience involved provide justification for beliefs about X?” (1991: 10) Similarly, Pārthasārathi can ask: if it were not really the case that one desirous of heaven should perform a Vedic sacrifice, then why (as this epistemological program is concerned to show) would the experience of a Vedic injunction to that effect provide justification for that belief?