How is bādha dealt with? Śabara’s investigation on the problem starts by asking what exactly is bādhita `blocked’ in such cases. Is it something already obtained (prāpta) or not? If it was already obtained to our treasure of knowledge, how can it then later be blocked without invalidating the epistemological status of the Veda? If it was not yet obtained, how can it be blocked?

The discussions on bādha become longer and longer in Kumārila’s commentary on Śabara and then in Somanātha’s sub-commentary on Kumārila. Somanātha explains that in case of bādha what happens is not that a later prescription or prohibition invalidates a previous one, for the reasons just said. Rather, what is blocked is only one’s understanding of that precept. One thought at first that “Do X” meant “Do X in all cases”, but after having heard “Do not do X in case of y”, one revises one’s understanding and comes to interpret “Do X” as “Do X in all cases apart from y”. Thus, the initial prescription is rephrased as referring to all but the content of the later deontic statement (y-vyatirikta X).
The first prescription had this restricted scope all the way long, so that no part of it is in fact invalidated, but one’s belief is blocked and needs a revision. Somanātha speaks here of the need to take back one’s previous opinion (buddhi-apahāra), not the existence of the epistemic content (viṣayasattva).

Somanātha articulates it in terms of the opposition between a sāmānyaśāstra ‘general teaching’ and a viśeṣaśātra ‘particular teaching’. This is tantamount to the well-known principle of jurisprudence that Lex specialis derogat legi generali, but the interesting point is how exactly this occurs. In order to avoid endangering the validity of the first prescription’s source, namely the Veda, Somanātha explains that the Veda initially produced only a cognition (jñāna), which is not necessarily valid, and that a specific understanding (vijñāna, interpreted as viśeṣa jñāna) comes about only thereafter, through the mechanism of bādha.

In some concluding verses he sums up the point by saying that as long as one looked at the Veda from a one-sided perspective (ekadeśa) one had a certain understanding of it. Later, through the completion of one’s perspective (paripūrṇa), one also gets a full (samasta) understanding of the meaning at stake.

Why is bādha relevant (for us)? It is interesting for us because it can show us new ways of dealing with such problems and it can drive out attention to problems we would not have considered otherwise.

Who wrote about it? All Mīmāṃsā authors needed to deal with this problem. In a sense, bādha is the reason for the existence of Mīmāṃsā. Had the Veda not entailed any seeming contradictions, the Mīmāṃsā enterprise would not have been undertaken.

Do readers share the impression that what we are dealing with in Somanātha’s interpretation is a device to account for belief-revision?