---
type: Concept
bundle: mimamsa-dharma
bundle_version: 0.10.0
id: codana
title: Codanā
iast: Codanā
devanagari: चोदना
description: 'The Vedic injunction or impulsion, the impersonal imperative force (borne by the injunctive verb-forms) that both reveals dharma and prompts the agent to act; NOT a command from a commander, NOT advice, NOT mere motivation.'
darshana:
- Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā
text_source: Mīmāṃsā Sūtra 1.1.2
tags:
- codana
- injunction
- mimamsa
- dharma
not:
- term: 'a command from a commander'
  why: 'A command presupposes a person with authority who issues it. Codanā has no author at all: the Veda is apauruṣeya. It is impersonal imperative force carried by the word itself, not an order traceable to any commanding will, human or divine.'
  instead: 'Render codanā as impersonal injunction or impulsion, the Veda''s own imperative, never as someone''s order.'
- term: 'advice or recommendation'
  why: 'Advice is optional and rests on reasons the hearer may weigh. Codanā is the sole means to dharma and does not argue from consequences; it enjoins, and the obligation is constituted by the injunctive word, not by a cost-benefit case.'
- term: 'psychological motivation or persuasion'
  why: 'Motivation is a contingent mental state and persuasion works on desire. Codanā is a linguistic-imperative that constitutes the duty; the two schools dispute what it conveys (a result-producing force, or a binding directive), but neither reduces it to a feeling.'
related:
- /concepts/dharma.md
- /concepts/vidhi.md
- /concepts/nisedha.md
timestamp: '2026-07-08'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Codanā -- चोदना

**Not:** a personal command, advice, motivation

## What It Actually Means

*Codanā* comes from the root *cud*, to impel or urge. It is the injunctive, impelling power of the Vedic sentence, expressed grammatically through the optative and imperative verb-forms (*liṅ*, *loṭ*, and the rest). In MS 1.1.2 it is codanā that defines dharma, so codanā is doing double duty: it is both the *epistemic* means by which dharma is known and the *impelling* force that moves the qualified agent to act. What codanā cannot be is a report: it never merely states that something is the case; it enjoins that something be brought about.

## School Divergence (Bhāṭṭa / Prābhākara)

The schools agree that codanā enjoins and disagree about what it primarily conveys. For the Bhāṭṭa school, the injunction conveys a *bhāvanā*, a productive urging toward a result, and installs the unseen *apūrva* that will yield that result. For the Prābhākara school, the injunction conveys *niyoga*, a binding directive addressed to the qualified agent, obeyed as duty for its own sake. This is the single most consequential fork in Mīmāṃsā, and it recurs across the vocabulary of this bundle.

## Audience Metaphor

A road sign that reads "yield" is not a person telling you to yield, and it is not advice you might reasonably decline; it is an impersonal instruction that binds anyone who meets the conditions. Codanā is the Veda's yield-sign: no one is behind it issuing the order, yet it enjoins, and its force does not depend on your being persuaded.

## Citations

1. Mīmāṃsā Sūtra 1.1.2 -- see [references/mimamsa-sutra.md](../references/mimamsa-sutra.md)
2. Śabara-Bhāṣya on the injunctive as the means to dharma -- see [references/sabara-bhashya.md](../references/sabara-bhashya.md)
