---
type: Concept
bundle: mimamsa-dharma
bundle_version: 0.10.0
id: nisedha
title: Niṣedha
iast: Niṣedha
devanagari: निषेध
description: 'The prohibition, the negative Vedic injunction that enjoins abstention from an action; a full injunction in its own right, NOT a mere absence of injunction, NOT a social taboo, NOT a human-enforced ban.'
darshana:
- Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā
text_source: Mīmāṃsā Sūtra 6.2 (kalañja prohibition)
tags:
- nisedha
- prohibition
- pratishedha
- mimamsa
not:
- term: 'a social or moral taboo'
  why: 'A taboo is a socially transmitted aversion. A niṣedha is a Vedic negative injunction carrying the same authorless authority as a positive vidhi, and its analysis is technical: it enjoins an abstention and its transgression produces pratyavāya, positive demerit, not merely social disapproval.'
  instead: 'Render niṣedha as a Vedic prohibition that enjoins abstention, not a taboo.'
- term: 'the mere absence of an injunction'
  why: 'Being not-enjoined is not the same as being forbidden. A niṣedha positively enjoins non-doing; on the standard analysis it installs a bhāvanā of abstention, so refraining is itself the enjoined act, not a simple gap where no rule applies.'
- term: 'a legal ban'
  why: 'A legal ban is enacted and enforced by a human authority through punishment. The force of a niṣedha is the demerit (pratyavāya) that accrues to the transgressor through the unseen order, not a sanction imposed by any court.'
related:
- /concepts/vidhi.md
- /concepts/codana.md
- /concepts/dharma.md
timestamp: '2026-07-08'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Niṣedha -- निषेध

**Not:** a social taboo, mere non-injunction, a legal ban

## What It Actually Means

A *niṣedha* (or *pratiṣedha*) is a prohibition, the negative counterpart of the vidhi. The stock example is *na kalañjaṃ bhakṣayet*, "one should not eat kalañja." The interesting question Mīmāṃsā presses is what a prohibition actually enjoins. The dominant answer is that it enjoins an *abstention*: refraining becomes a positive, enjoined act with its own unseen force, so that keeping the prohibition is doing something dharmic, not merely failing to do something. Transgression, correspondingly, is not a neutral event but generates *pratyavāya*, positive demerit that must ripen.

## Why the Analysis Matters

Treating a prohibition as a taboo or a ban misses the whole Mīmāṃsā move: the negative injunction is woven into the same economy of unseen merit and demerit as the positive one. This is also where the schools distinguish an obligatory abstention from the mere non-performance of an optional rite, a distinction with no analogue in a system of social taboos.

## Audience Metaphor

A quiet-car sign on a train does not merely mark the absence of a rule; it enjoins an active keeping-quiet, and breaking it is a positive infraction, not a neutral omission. A niṣedha is that sign raised to the level of the unseen order: the abstention is something you actively do, and its breach leaves a real mark.

## Citations

1. The kalañja prohibition and the analysis of negative injunctions -- see [references/mimamsa-sutra.md](../references/mimamsa-sutra.md)
2. Śabara-Bhāṣya on prohibition and pratyavāya -- see [references/sabara-bhashya.md](../references/sabara-bhashya.md)
