The Unseen Potency of Ritual (Apūrva)

Mīmāṃsā, the school devoted to the science of Vedic ritual, faced a puzzle: a sacrifice is performed and finished in a moment, yet the Veda promises it yields a fruit — heaven, prosperity — only much later, perhaps after death. What carries the result across the gap? Their answer is apūrva, the 'unprecedented' — an unseen potency brought newly into being by the correctly performed rite, which abides after the act is over and ripens into its promised fruit in due time. It is Mīmāṃsā's distinctive bridge between ritual cause and distant effect.