---
type: Concept
bundle: mimamsa-dharma
bundle_version: 0.10.0
id: karya
title: Kārya (Prābhākara)
iast: Kārya
devanagari: कार्य
description: 'In Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā, the to-be-done, the noetic content of an injunction that the enjoined agent apprehends as needing to be accomplished, the correlate of niyoga; NOT a desired goal, NOT the physical action or product, NOT kārya-as-effect in the Nyāya sense.'
darshana:
- Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā
text_source: Bṛhatī (Prakaraṇapañcikā)
tags:
- karya
- mimamsa
- prabhakara
- to-be-done
not:
- term: 'a desired goal or end'
  why: 'A goal is something wanted; kārya is something to-be-done in the normative sense, apprehended through the injunction independently of desire. It is oughtness grasped as a task laid on the agent, not an object of wanting.'
  instead: 'Render kārya as the enjoined to-be-done grasped through the injunction, not a desired goal.'
- term: 'the physical action or its product'
  why: 'Kārya is the noetic-normative structure, the that-it-is-to-be-done, not the bodily movement or the resulting artefact.'
- term: 'kārya as effect (the Nyāya sense)'
  why: 'In Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika kārya means effect, the correlate of cause. Same word, different technical object: the Prābhākara kārya is the enjoined to-be-done, not the effect-term of causation (see nyaya-vaisheshika v0.9).'
related:
- /concepts/niyoga.md
- /concepts/vidhi.md
- /concepts/anvitabhidhana.md
timestamp: '2026-07-08'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Kārya (Prābhākara) -- कार्य

**Not:** a desired goal, the physical action, karya-as-effect (Nyaya)

## What It Actually Means

For Prabhākara, to understand a vidhi is to apprehend a kārya, a to-be-accomplished, and to be thereby bound (niyoga). The kārya is not read off from a stated result; it is given in the injunction as the very shape of what one must do. Prabhākara''s account of how a child first learns language, from overhearing commands and seeing them obeyed, makes the injunctive kārya the primary unit of meaning, which feeds his anvitābhidhāna theory of sentence sense (see anvitabhidhana).

## Audience Metaphor

When a duty-bound nurse reads "administer the dose at once," what she grasps is not a prize to win but a thing-to-be-done pressing on her. Kārya is exactly that felt to-be-done as the meaning of the instruction, prior to any thought of reward.

## Citations

1. Prabhākara, Bṛhatī; Śālikanātha''s Prakaraṇapañcikā -- see [references/brhati.md](../references/brhati.md)
2. Contrast in Śāstra-dīpikā -- see [references/sastra-dipika.md](../references/sastra-dipika.md)
