Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c7.s7.t2.10

v1.c7.s7.t2.10

Before or when the *Nyaya Sutra* was composed in India there were already certain scattered logic theories or concepts. For example, Bhadrabahu (about 433 to 375 BCE), a Jaina philosopher put forth some concepts or categories about the process of inference, involving the proposition, cause, example, conclusion and the like, but these concepts or categories all have a lesser influence than the *Nyaya Sutra* and a considerable part of them are only mentioned in some ancient documents, and their specific contents are not very clear. In contrast, the *Nyaya Sutra* is the first book in ancient India that proposed systematic logic theories and played an important role in the formation of Indian Hetuvidya.