  It is sometimes surmised from his evident knowledge of Dravidian languages (his Tantravārttika includes some discussion of Tamil word forms) that Kumārila may have been south Indian; as is typically the case for the figures of classical Indian philosophy, though, he is really known to us only in the stylized terms of traditional hagiographies. What is certain is that Kumārila was one of the two most significant commentators on the foundational texts of the tradition of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā; indeed, this orthodox Brahmanical tradition of thought divides chiefly along two lines of seventh- and eighth-century commentary, with those Mīmāṃsakas who take their bearings from Kumārila having been styled Bhāṭṭas (“followers of Bhaṭṭa”), while those who defer instead to Prabhākara—who flourished around 700, and who is sometimes said to have been Kumārila’s student—are comparably called “Prābhākaras.”