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The Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies v2.c15: Preface

The Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies v2.c15

Language
English

Contents

Preface

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The present volume provides a detailed resumé of current knowledge about the classical Indian philosophical system of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika in its earlier stages. Specifically, it covers the literatures of Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika from their inception in the respective sūtras up to the time of Gaṅgeśa, that is, about A.D. 1350. This dividing point is regularly accepted in the tradition, since with Gaṅgeśa it is felt that a new start is made within the systems, the result coming to be known as Navyanyāya, “new” Nyāya. We hope that a volume will follow covering the remainder of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika literature from Gaṅgeśa to the present.

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A volume already published, *Bibliography of Indian Philosophies* (New Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass, 1970), provides a useful guide to the literature, both primary and secondary, on the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika school, and citations in the present book make constant references to the *Bibliography*, such references usually appearing in the form of “B” followed by the number of entry cited.

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The form of this book features an extended introductory section followed by summaries of works belonging to the system’s literature. These summaries are arranged in relative chronological order to assist the reader in tracing the development of the school’s thought. Summaries have been solicited from scholars around the world—Indian, Japanese, and American scholars have collaborated in the undertaking. This international aspect of the book is one of its pleasantest features, serving to put philosophers and Indologists around the world in closer touch with one another.

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A few words of explanation and advice as to how to use this book may be in order. Perhaps the first and foremost thing that needs to be said is that this volume is not intended to be analytically definitive: it invites the attention of philosophers and scholars rather than making such attention unnecessary. The thinking behind the preparation of this volume has been that philosophers without extended training in Sanskrit and Indian studies are not in a very good position to appreciate the contributions made by classical Indian philosophy toward the solution of perennial philosophical problems. This is partly due to the fact that the tradition in which the Indian schools arise and grow is foreign to Western philosophers, but our thinking is that this fact is an avoidable hazard. It is also partly due to the type of translations that have been produced by Indian and Western Sanskrit scholars; these translations, while usually accurate, are not always philosophically perspicuous, which is to say that they do not always bring out what a professional philosopher will find most interesting and identifiable in the material. The production of an acceptable translation is, and ought to be, a serious and extensive scholarly problem, and the summaries in Part II of this book are in no way intended as surrogates for such translations. Nevertheless, we think that philosophers should be provided with a tool for introducing Indian thought into their courses on problems of philosophy, history of thought, etc., and that the translations and other materials currently available to them do not make it really possible for them to work up Indian thought without more training than most philosophers are willing or able to expose themselves to. Our aim here, then, is to provide the philosopher with an account of the systematic thought of India which is less detailed than an accurate translation, but more detailed than the standard introductory textbook on Indian philosophy.

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It is to be stressed that the work is addressed to philosophers primarily, and Indologists secondarily. Of course we hope that the materials here presented will, within the limits of our intent, be adjudged sufficiently accurate in terms of scholarship. The editor has endeavored to obtain the work of some of the leading scholars of the system to furnish summaries. However, these summaries omit large portions, may well omit sections which others deem of primary importance, and will otherwise deviate from the evaluations likely to be made by the Sanskritist. In order that there be no misunderstanding it is well to mention these points here. These summaries, then, are not substitutes for scholarship, but guides and markers for further study on the part of trained scholars.

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In studying the philosophy of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika school one finds that a fair amount of the literature occurs in the sūtra or commentary form so well known in India. The reader should bear in mind that, in the summary of one of the sūtras, say, what is summarized is no more than what is actually said there; if the summary seems imprecise and laconic, that is because (if we have done our work well) the sūtra has those features. It is characteristic of this tradition that the commentators spell out what they believe to be the intent of the authors of the sūtras; thus the reader should, if he is tracing the thought of the school on a given topic, be careful to read the summaries of the commentators in conjunction with that of the sūtra. The index provided is intended to enable the reader to identify all the passages summarized here which bear upon a given topic, and he is advised to use it frequently. Sometimes, too, an author will comment on a topic in a part of his work unrelated to any logical development that the ordinary reader can discern; here again the reader may well miss this contribution unless he uses the index.

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This volume has been in preparation for a number of years. Work on it began in the early 1960s. The editor wishes to thank the American Institute of Indian Studies for awarding him a Fellowship in 1963-64 which enabled him to visit prospective contributors and utilize the resources that India provided for furthering his work. Later on, in the summer of 1967, he received a Summer Session grant from the University of Minnesota which enabled him to use the Widener Library to locate out of the way secondary materials in preparing his introductory section. He is extremely grateful for both these opportunities.

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1977 KARL H. POTTER the *Goths*, the *Vandals*, the *Suevi*, the *Burgundians*, the *Alani*, the *Huns*, the *Franks*, the *Saxons*, the *Thuringians*, the *Rugians*, and the *Heruli*. The names of these tribes are familiar to the reader, but their origin, their migrations, and their settlements are involved in the deepest obscurity. The most probable opinion is that they were all of German or Scythian extraction, and that they had been driven from their native seats by the pressure of the Huns, a formidable nation of Tartars, who had crossed the Volga and the Tanais, and were advancing with rapid strides towards the frontiers of the Roman empire.

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The first of these nations that crossed the Danube was the *Goths*. They were divided into two great branches, the *Visigoths* or Western Goths, and the *Ostrogoths* or Eastern Goths. The Visigoths, under the conduct of Fritigern, implored the protection of the emperor Valens, and were permitted to settle in the province of Thrace. But the perfidy of the Roman governors, and the insolence of the Roman soldiers, soon provoked them to rebellion. They defeated the imperial armies, and Valens himself perished in the battle of Hadrianople.

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The death of Valens was followed by the accession of Theodosius, who, by his wisdom and valour, restored the discipline of the Roman legions, and compelled the Goths to accept a peace, which was rather a truce than a permanent settlement. The Goths, however, remained in the heart of the empire, and their presence was a constant source of danger and alarm. They were no longer the rude barbarians who had first crossed the Danube; they had learned the arts of war and the policy of the Romans, and they were ready to take advantage of any opportunity to assert their independence.

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The reign of Theodosius was the last period of the glory of the Roman empire. After his death, the empire was divided between his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius. Arcadius reigned in the East, and Honorius in the West. The division was fatal to the interests of the state. The two brothers were weak and indolent, and they were governed by their ministers and favourites. The Goths, under the command of Alaric, took advantage of the weakness of the government, and invaded Italy. They besieged and took Rome, and the eternal city, which had for so many centuries been the mistress of the world, was plundered by the barbarians.

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The fall of Rome was a shock to the whole civilized world. It was the end of an era, and the beginning of a new and darker age. The Goths, after the death of Alaric, retired from Italy, and settled in Gaul and Spain, where they founded kingdoms which were destined to last for several centuries. The Vandals, under the command of Genseric, crossed into Africa, and established a powerful kingdom, which for a time threatened the security of the Mediterranean. The Franks, under the command of Clovis, conquered Gaul, and laid the foundations of the French monarchy. The Saxons, under the command of Hengist and Horsa, invaded Britain, and established the kingdoms of the Heptarchy.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF NYĀYA-VAIŚEṢIKA the *Goths*, the *Vandals*, the *Suevi*, the *Burgundians*, the *Alani*, the *Huns*, the *Franks*, the *Saxons*, the *Thuringians*, the *Rugians*, and the *Heruli*. The names of these tribes are familiar to the reader, but their origin, their migrations, and their settlements are involved in the deepest obscurity. The most probable opinion is that they were all of German or Scythian extraction, and that they had been driven from their native seats by the pressure of the Huns, a formidable nation of Tartars, who had crossed the Volga and the Tanais, and were advancing with rapid strides towards the frontiers of the Roman empire.

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The first of these nations that crossed the Danube was the *Goths*. They were divided into two great branches, the *Visigoths* or Western Goths, and the *Ostrogoths* or Eastern Goths. The Visigoths, under the conduct of Fritigern, implored the protection of the emperor Valens, and were permitted to settle in the province of Thrace. But the perfidy of the Roman governors, and the insolence of the Roman soldiers, soon provoked them to rebellion. They defeated the imperial armies, and Valens himself perished in the battle of Hadrianople.

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The death of Valens was followed by the accession of Theodosius, who, by his wisdom and valour, restored the discipline of the Roman legions, and compelled the Goths to accept a peace, which was rather a truce than a permanent settlement. The Goths, however, remained in the heart of the empire, and their presence was a constant source of danger and alarm. They were no longer the rude barbarians who had first crossed the Danube; they had learned the arts of war and the policy of the Romans, and they were ready to take advantage of any opportunity to assert their independence.

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The reign of Theodosius was the last period of the glory of the Roman empire. After his death, the empire was divided between his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius. Arcadius reigned in the East, and Honorius in the West. The division was fatal to the interests of the state. The two brothers were weak and indolent, and they were governed by their ministers and favourites. The Goths, under the command of Alaric, took advantage of the weakness of the government, and invaded Italy. They besieged and took Rome, and the eternal city, which had for so many centuries been the mistress of the world, was plundered by the barbarians.

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The fall of Rome was a shock to the whole civilized world. It was the end of an era, and the beginning of a new and darker age. The Goths, after the death of Alaric, retired from Italy, and settled in Gaul and Spain, where they founded kingdoms which were destined to last for several centuries. The Vandals, under the command of Genseric, crossed into Africa, and established a powerful kingdom, which for a time threatened the security of the Mediterranean. The Franks, under the command of Clovis, conquered Gaul, and laid the foundations of the French monarchy. The Saxons, under the command of Hengist and Horsa, invaded Britain, and established the kingdoms of the Heptarchy.

Historical Resume

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A full-scale philosophical system is generally expected to speak to problems in the following areas: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and theory of value, logic, and philosophical method. The system of Indian philosophy known as Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika is such a full-scale system. Its contribution in each and every one of these areas is extensive, interesting, and usually of fundamental importance, as this introduction will attempt to show.

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*Metaphysics*: Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika offers one of the most vigorous efforts at the construction of a substantialist, realist ontology that the world has ever seen. It provides an extended critique of event-ontologies and idealist metaphysics. It starts from a unique basis for ontology that incorporates several of the most recent Western insights into the question of how to defend realism most successfully. This ontology is "Platonistic" (it admits repeatable properties as Plato's did), realistic (it builds the world from "timeless" individuals as well as spatio-temporal points or events), but neither exclusively physicalistic nor phenomenalistic (it admits as basic individuals entities both directly known and inferred from scientific investigations).¹ Though the system has many quaint and archaic features from a modern point of view, as a philosophical base for accommodating scientific insights it has advantages: its authors developed an atomic theory, came to treat numbers very much in the spirit of modern mathematics, argued for a wave theory of sound transmission, and adapted an empiricist view of causality to their own uses.

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*Epistemology*: Whereas in "modern" philosophy of the West the idealist critique of substance initiated by Berkeley has never been seriously challenged, the philosophers of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika school entered the controversy very early in its history against Buddhists who used Berkeleyan arguments. The resulting polemical battle may well represent the most important confrontation in philosophical literature between so-called naive realism and the threats to it from idealist sources. Nyāya offers an account of perception which makes sense of our belief in an external world, yet promises to explain the fact of perceptual error without allowing that opening wedge of idealism, the admission that the mind creates certain parts of our world (and so why not all of it?). The intricacy of this discussion between Nyāya and Buddhism brings out many fascinating and little understood aspects of the two views and what they require from their adherents.

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*Ethics and Theory of Value*: The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika system provides no startling new ideas over and beyond what is generally acceptable to Hindus, but it presents many carefully gauged arguments for the standard position, involving belief in transmigration, *karma*, and the possibility of liberation from future rebirths. It does not discuss questions of "ethical theory" as we understand that term in contemporary philosophy, since that was the business of others (Mīmāṃsakas) in the peculiar division of labor adopted by the ancient Indian thinkers. However, it endorses many of the general ethical attitudes of Hindu sages, questioning some in passing. On one point Nyāya is recognized by Hindus to have provided a definitive treatment, and this is on arguments for the existence of God.

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*Logic*: Nyāya grew in part as a theory of philosophical debate, and among Hindus has been accepted as the system which specially studies the theory of arguments good and bad, in keeping with the division of labor principle alluded to in the previous paragraph. This does not mean that all Hindu philosophers accepted every point in the Nyāya account, but they certainly tended to look to Nyāya for definitive treatment and detailed discussions of intricate points. Nyāya had its great rival, however, in the logic developed by the Buddhists, and from this controversy developed one of the most comprehensive logical theories the world has known. Indian logic is never conceived as "formal" in the Western sense, but as an account of sane processes of reasoning it has few equals in the West for attention to detail.

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*Philosophical Method*: Topics in this area are of the greatest current interest to philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition. Western philosophers sometimes seem to suppose that the "linguistic turn" in recent philosophy is a unique phenomenon, a turning-point in the history of philosophy. Perhaps it is, but if so it took place many centuries ago in India, where attention to grammar was commonplace by the 4th century B.C. The Nyāya theory of language, of meaning and the meaningfulness of words and sentences, shows subtlety at the levels of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Nyāya also gave prolonged attention to defense of the empirical theory of validity and truth, opposing uncritical use of intuition and authoritarian appeals to revelation.

I. Who were these Philosophers?

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The present volume covers the first part of the history of the school of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, up until the beginning of so-called Navya-nyāya in the *Tattvacintāmaṇi* of Gaṅgeśa. The reader will be able to find below summaries of what we know about these ancient philosophers. In this section I provide only a brief survey designed to give a nodding acquaintance with the most important of them so that they can be referred to as we proceed.

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Gaṅgeśa flourished around A. D. 1350. This volume, then, deals with the system as it is presented and developed by some 55 authors who flourished prior to A. D. 1350, and who wrote some works of which we know or have heard. Many of these authors are practically nothing but names to us at present, and it is quite possible that we shall never learn more about them. Of the 82 works whose titles are known to us, only 51 are available now; the remaining ones, if we know anything about them, are known through fragmentary references taken from the works of philosophers who addressed polemics toward their views.²

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Of the 50 works available in manuscript, 33 have been edited, some more than once, and 11 have been translated—wholly or partially—into English. In our treatment in this volume we have been able to provide summaries of the contents of 30 of these works. However, many of the works we have been unable to summarize are late commentaries of apparently less interest than some of the more original works that are better known.

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As with several of the major Hindu philosophical systems, there is a tradition that looks back to a basic work in which the principles of the system were supposedly first enunciated. Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika were frequently listed as two systems,³ partly perhaps because there are two sets of *sūtras* or aphorisms from which the two schools issued. It is uncertain whether these works were the work of one author or many, and it is probable that the development of the doctrines they summarize took place over several centuries. Of the two, the *Vaiśeṣikasūtras*, attributed to a probably fictitious person named "Kaṇāda" (perhaps "atom-eater") or "Ulūka" ("owl"), seem to represent the somewhat earlier stage of development. The date of Gautama or Akṣapāda ("eyes in his feet"), to whom the *Nyāyasūtras* is attributed, is variously estimated from as early as the 6th century B.C. to the 2nd century A.D., the reason for the discrepancy being apparently that these *sūtras*, which achieved their present form around the time of Nāgārjuna and very possibly were fashioned by a chief architect of that period, are attributed to a traditional personage who must have lived very long ago, since he is known to the authors of Vedas and epics which date back many centuries before Christ. In any case, it seems likely that traditions which associate Kaṇāda with Banaras and Akṣapāda with Mithilā (North Bihar) may be accepted; Banaras was an ancient seat of learning, and many of the most influential later scholars of the system came from or were instructed in Mithilā.

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The style of the *Vaiśeṣikasūtras* is laconic, and several parts of it are extremely difficult to interpret. Apparently later Vaiśeṣika authors found them difficult to understand also, as commentaries on these *sūtras* before Vādīndra (fl. 1225) have been lost and apparently more or less forgotten. The style of the *Nyāyasūtras*, by contrast, is somewhat more discursive, particularly in its third and fourth books, which has led some to guess that these are of later origin. However, it is several centuries before the first extant commentary on these *sūtras* was composed by Vātsyāyana or Pakṣilasvāmin (450-500), who is also known as “Drāmiḍa,” suggesting his home was in the Deccan or the south of India. The *Nyāyabhāṣya*, as this commentary is known, became the basis for a great many subcommentaries in the next few centuries, and indeed on until the present. Whether Vātsyāyana accurately understood the meaning of the aphorisms on which he comments, it is his account of Nyāya which provides the springboard for many of the subsequent developments in the system.

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This is not to suggest, however, that each new sub-commentator did not innovate. They certainly did so, for they were under constant pressure from a remarkable series of philosophical Buddhists, who selected Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika as their prime target in controversy. Scholars are still not absolutely certain about the relative chronology of this period, but it would appear that Buddhist logic of a serious sort began with Vasubandhu, who was more or less contemporaneous with Vātsyāyana; it was developed by Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, defended by Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla, and refined by Ratnakīrti and Jñānaśrīmitra, and that this period found constant challenge and response between these philosophers and the contemporary Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika thinkers.

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Part of the difficulty in piecing together the history of this period is due to the fact that the historian must command several languages to be in full command of his materials. The original language of all these philosophers, Hindu and Buddhist, was classical Sanskrit, but for many of the Buddhist works the scholar must rely on Tibetan and/or Chinese versions, then reconstruct the original. It is probable that many as yet unknown works of these times are hidden away in Tibetan lamaseries, for occasional forays have brought to light a number of works previously unknown or only heard of, and there must be many more waiting to be discovered.

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It is understandable that the Sanskrit works which Chinese monks translated and carried to China during these times were mainly Buddhist. Only two Hindu texts are known to have been translated; one of them is a treatise called *Daśapadārthaśāstra* by a Candramati (or Maticandra) who probably dates from about Vātsyāyana’s time. His work is a version of the Vaiśeṣika system, and Frauwallner has argued that it was to refute his version that Praśastapāda wrote the work which is probably, even more than the *Vaiśeṣikasūtras*, the definitive treatise on Vaiśeṣika tenet.⁴ Praśastapāda’s work is called *Padārthadharmasaṃgraha*; while it alludes frequently to the *sūtras*, it can hardly be called a commentary on them, being an independent exposition of the fundamental tenets of the system with some detailed notes on certain topics. Scholars have argued whether Praśastapāda got his theory of inference from Dignāga the great Buddhist logician, or vice versa. It appears fairly certain that Praśastapāda and Dignāga were separated by no more than a century. Frauwallner dates Praśastapāda 500 to 600. Approximately contemporary with him is the Naiyāyika⁵ Uddyotakara, whose commentary on *Nyāyabhāṣya* is the oldest now available. Uddyotakara clearly knows of Dignāga’s views and attacks them. His *Nyāyavārttika* is philosophical work of great skill in dialectic; he was a consummate philosopher, although some modern scholars judge him too fond of sharp practices in argumentation.

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At this point, unhappily, a 300-year gap sets in as far as available texts are concerned. From Buddhist sources, however, we know that the period was alive with philosophical controversy. Śāntarakṣita (ca. 700) refers to several old Naiyāyikas and considers some of them to be "pillars" of the system—notably Bhāvivikta, Aviddhakarṇa, and Śaṃkarasvāmin. Bhāvivikta may be prior to Uddyotakara, but the other two must fall within this 300-year gap. Fortunately, Śāntarakṣita and his commentator Kamalaśīla provide extensive references to the views of several of these philosophers.

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The next available texts of the system come from a new direction—Kashmir. One of the most interesting personalities among our group of philosophers is Jayanta Bhaṭṭa (840-900), the author of a *Nyāyamañjarī* (and apparently a summary of it called *Nyāyakalikā*). Jayanta came from a Bengali family which had migrated to Kashmir several generations previously; he was an orthodox Brahmin who zealously defended the authority of the Vedas and saw the refutation of Buddhism as a religious cause. Yet he was no fanatic; he held that differences among religious sects are unimportant since they all seek the same end, namely liberation: all serious (i.e., Hindu?) faiths should be tolerated. Furthermore, Jayanta was capable of retaining his sense of humor under adversity: he tells us that as he writes *Nyāyamañjarī* he is being held prisoner in a cave and "I have beguiled my days here by this diversion of writing a book." The book turns out to be one of the acknowledged masterpieces of Sanskrit style, replete with light turns of phrase to offset the dry character of his subject matter. An "allrounder," Jayanta also wrote a play and was well trained in grammar and aesthetics.

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Another Kashmiri Naiyāyika is Bhāsarvajña (860-920), the author of *Nyāyasāra* and a commentary on it called *Nyāyabhūṣaṇa*. The importance of the latter work for the development of the system is difficult to overemphasize. The *Nyāyasāra*, a brief and rather straightforward summary of Nyāya doctrines with a few remarkable features, is a standard text. The *Bhūṣaṇa*, however, is a long work that was thought to be lost until quite recently. The work has now been published, and its appearance is one of the most exciting events in the history of scholarship on Indian philosophy, for the doctrines in this work are apparently highly extraordinary and original. Later philosophers continually refer to the view of the "Bhūṣaṇakāra," or sometimes to a group of Naiyāyikas they call "ekadeśins"—meaning "a section of the school," apparently referring to the followers of the Bhūṣaṇakāra. Since many of the opinions of this section involve throwing out whole categories of time-honored importance within the system, it is understandable that Bhāsarvajña's views provide the basis for what is perhaps the only serious factional split within the system, one that lasts on and is referred to till the end of our period. Bhāsarvajña's theories may well turn out to have inspired some of the reforms currently attributed⁶ to the Navya-naiyāyika Raghunātha Śiromaṇi, for instance.

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This brings us to the 10th and 11th centuries, a period during which the Nyāya-Buddhism conflict reached its climax. Indeed, after this period Buddhism, for whatever reasons, is no longer a force in India. Naiyāyikas like to think this occurred because of the force of their polemics.

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Three commentaries on Praśastapāda’s classic Vaiśeṣika treatise were written during this period: the *Vyomavatī* of Vyomaśiva (900-960), the *Nyāyakandalī* of Śrīdhara (950-1000), and the *Kiraṇāvalī* of Udayana (1050-1100). These are lengthy, technical accounts defending complex ontology with exceptional subtlety. As for commentaries on the Nyāya literature, two authors stand out prominently. One is Vācaspati Miśra (900-980), a rather unique phenomenon in Indian philosophy, for he managed to compose treatises defending no less than five different and mutually incompatible systems of thought, treatises each of which has become a classic within its tradition. His contribution to Nyāya is a commentary on Uddyotakara’s work: its title is *Nyāyavārttika Tātparyaṭīkā*.

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On Vācaspati’s work Udayana (1050-1100) composed still another commentary called *Pariśuddhi*. Many modern scholars believe that Udayana deserves the title of the greatest philosopher of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika school; he certainly stands as one of the most important figures. Besides *Kiraṇāvalī* and the *Pariśuddhi* he wrote five other works on Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, and fortunately they are all preserved. Two of them are brief presentations of the basic definitions of Nyāya concepts (*Lakṣaṇāvalī* and *Lakṣaṇamālā*). A third is a development of the topic of how to win or lose a debate, a topic Gautama treated in the fifth book of his *sūtras*: Udayana gives it a full-scale treatment in his *Nyāyapariśiṣṭa*.

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The other two works are perhaps Udayana’s most important contributions. One of them is entitled *Ātmatattvaviveka*, “Discrimination of the Reality of the Self”, a broadside against Buddhism from which, according to confirmed Naiyāyikas, Buddhism never recovered. This text badly needs translating; it may well be that its brand of analysis would prove more interesting to contemporary philosophers than any of the works so far available in all of Indian thought. In it Udayana not only gives arguments for the existence of the continuants the Naiyāyikas call “Selves”; he also considers and refutes fundamental principles of Buddhist analysis such as the principle that whatever is real has only momentary existence, the Buddhist denial of an external world independent of the mind, the very important Buddhist view that substances are nothing but bundles of qualities, and the Buddhist account of causation which is akin to that of Hume and Kant.

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Udayana’s *magnum opus*, according to many critics, is yet another work, entitled *Nyāyakusumāñjali*. This work contains by general acclaim the definitive treatment of the question of how to prove God’s existence. It is still regularly studied in Indian curricula. As Udayana develops the question of God's existence it turns out to involve most of the central topics of philosophy—e.g., the nature of successful argument (since arguments for God go beyond the reach of the senses), the nature of causation *re* the cosmological argument and the need for a creator, and so on.

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So monumentally does Udayana loom in the history of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika that writers in this tradition over the next few generations are overshadowed by comparison. Indeed, some historians of the school hold that it is a mistake to break "old" and "new" Nyāya at Gaṅgeśa; Udayana, himself, pioneered the new techniques that Gaṅgeśa so expertly wielded. There is no doubt that much of the discussion during the period between the two—a period of about 250 years—was devoted to refining Udayana's definitions and analyses, though Udayana was by no means followed slavishly, and new ideas continued to be broached and older ones resuscitated.

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Too, part of our difficulty is that this post-Udayana, pre-Gaṅgeśa period has not been studied nearly as extensively as that prior to Udayana. One or two short handbooks have been translated: that of Śivāditya called *Saptapadārthī* presents a succinct account of Vaiśeṣika, useful for students who study in India by rote methods, and Keśava Miśra's *Tarkabhāṣā* is a similarly useful handbook for students of Nyāya. Of the more original works of this period none are available in translation. One is Śrīvallabha's (or simply Vallabha's) *Nyāyalīlāvatī*, written during the first part of the 12th century. Another is the *Mahāvidyāviḍambana* of Bhaṭṭa Vādindra (1175-1225), which contributes importantly to the development of logical theory by exhaustively and critically studying the question of that sort of argument called *kevalānvayī*, where what is being proved is the existence of universal properties or things satisfying them. As we approach Gaṅgeśa's time a number of works are written, none of them well-known to scholarship, which may well contain much of what Gaṅgeśa systematizes. Notable in this group are the *Nyāyaratna* of Maṇikaṇṭha Miśra (1275-1325) and the *Nyāyasiddhāntadīpa* of Śaśadhara (1275-1325).

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For ease of reference the table on the next page summarizes the names of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika authors, their works, dates, and places of origin where known.

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T—Translated E—Not translated, but has been published M—Not published, but manuscript(s) available

Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika before Gangeśa—Check List of Authors and Works

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| Name | Date | Place | Works |
| 1. Kaṇāda | ? | Banaras? | Vaiśeṣikasūtras (T) |
| 2. Gautama | ? | Mithilā, then Kathiāwār? | Nyāyasūtras (T) |
| 3. Vākyakāra | ? | ? | Vaiśeṣikasūtravākya |
| 4. Kaṭandikāra | ? | ? | Vaiśeṣikasūtravākya-kaṭandi |
| 5. Vātsyāyana | 450-500 (Oberhammer) | Deccan? | Nyāyabhāṣya (T) |
| 6. Candramati | 450-500 (Frauwallner) | ? | Daśapadārthaśāstra (T) |
| 7. Bhāvivikta | 520-580 (Frauwallner) | ? | Nyāyabhāṣyaṭīkā |
| 8. Praśastapāda | 550-600 (Frauwallner) | ? | Padārthadharmasaṃgraha (T) |
| 8a. (Praśastamati) | | | Ṭīkā on Vaiśeṣikasūtras, Vākya |
| 9. Uddyotakāra | 550-610 | Srughna near Thāneśvar | Nyāyavārttika (T) and Bhāṣya |
| 10. Ātreya | ? | ? | Rāvaṇabhāṣya on Vaiśeṣikasūtras |
| 11. Prīticandra | 600-650 | ? | ? |
| 12. Aviddhakarṇa | 620-700 | ? | Nyāyabhāṣyaṭīkā |
| 13. Śaṃkara (svāmin) | 675-725 (before Śāntarakṣita) | ? | Sthirasiddhi |
| 14. Viśvarūpa | 800-850 (Steinkellner) | ? | Nyāyabhāṣyaṭīkā |
| 15. Dhairyarāśī | 800-850 (Steinkellner) | ? | ? |
| 16. Jayanta Bhaṭṭa | 840-900 (Steinkellner) | Kashmir | Nyāyamañjarī (E: partially T) Nyāyakalikā (?) (E) (Āgamaḍambara) |
| 17. Nyāyaratnakāra | 840-900 (Kavirāj) | Kashmir? | Nyāyaratna |
| 18. Bhāsarvajña | 860-920 (Suali) | Kashmir | Nyāyasāra (E) Nyāyabhūṣaṇa (E) (Gaṇakārikās) |
| 19. Trilocana | (870-930) | Karnāṭa country? | Nyāyaprakīrṇaka Nyāyamañjarī Nyāyabhāṣyaṭīkā |

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| Name | Date | Place | Works |
| 20. Sānātani | 900-960? (D.C.Bhattacharya) | Bengal | C on Nyāyasūtras (?) |
| 21. Vyomaśiva | 900-960 (V. Varadachari) | "from South" "Kashmir" (D.R. Sastri) | Vyomavatī on Padārthasaṃgraha (E) |
| 22. Vācaspati Miśra I | 900-980 (Thakur) | Mithilā | Nyāyavārtikatātparyatīkā (E) Nyāyasūcinibandha (E) C on Nyāyaratna |
| 23. Adhyāyana | 950-1000? (Steinkellner) | ? | Rucīṭikā on Nyāyabhāṣya |
| 24. Vittoka | 950-1000? (Steinkellner) | ? | ? |
| 25. Narasimha | 950-1000? (Steinkellner) | ? | ? |
| 26. Śridhara | 950-1000 | Bengal | Nyāyakandalī on Padārthadharmasaṃgraha (T) |
| 27. Śrivatsa | 1000-1050 (D.C.Bhattacharya) | Mithilā (?) | ? |
| 28. Aniruddha | 1025-1075? (Jetly) | ? | Vivaraṇapañjikā on NS, NBh, NV and NVT (M) |
| 29. Udayana | 1050-1100 (Frauwallner) | Mithilā | Lakṣaṇāvalī (E) Lakṣaṇamālā (E) Ātmatattvaviveka (E) Nyāyakusumāñjali (partially T: E) Nyāyapariśiṣṭa (E) Nyāyavārtikatātparyatīkāpariśuddhi (partially E) Kiraṇāvalī on Padārthadharmasaṃgraha (E) |
| 30. Aparārkadeva | 1075-1125 (Subrahmanya Sastri) | Konkan | Nyāyamuktāvalī on Nyāyasāra (E) |
| 31. Śrikaṇṭha | 1075-1125 (D.C.Bhattacharya) | ? | Pañcaprasthānyāyatarka on NS, NBh, NV, NVT, and NVTP (M) |
| 32. Vṛttikāra | 1100-1150 (Thakur) | Bengal | Vaiśeṣikasūtravṛtti (M) |
| 33. (Śrī) Vallabha | 1100-1150 (D.C.Bhattacharya) | Mithilā | Nyāyalīlāvatī (E) |

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| Name | Date | Place | Works |
| 34. Varadarāja | 1100-1150 (V. Varadachari) | ? Kashmir or Āndhra | Tārkikarakṣā (E) Sārasamgraha on 'Tārkikarakṣā (E) Nyāyakusumāñjali-bodhanī (E) C on Kiraṇāvalī (M) ? Nyāyadīpikā (M) |
| 35. Śivāditya | 1100-1150 (D.C.Bhattacharya) | ? | Saptapadārthī (T) Lakṣaṇamālā Hetukhaṇḍana Upādhivārttika Arthāpattivārttika Nyāyamālā (E) |
| 36. Vādīndra | 1175-1225 (D.C.Bhattacharya) | Daulatabad | Mahāvidyāviḍambana (E) Kiraṇāvalīdarpaṇa (partially E) Kaṇadāsūtranibandha (M) Vaiśeṣikasūtravyākhyā (E) (Summary of previous item) ? C on Lakṣaṇāvalī |
| 37. Bhaṭṭa Rāghava | 1200-1250 (D.C.Bhattacharya) | Daulatabad | Nyāyasāravicāra (M) |
| 38. Divākara | 1200-1250 (D.C.Bhattacharya) | Mithilā | Nyāyakusumāñjali-parimala (M) Nibandhoddyota (on Pariśuddhi?) (partially M) Mānamanohara (M) Nyāyalakṣmīvilāsa |
| 39. Vādī Vāgīśvara | "before Ānandānubhava" (E.P. Radhakrishnan) | | |
| 40. Nārāyaṇa Sarvajña | 1225-1275 (D.C.Bhattacharya) | ? | ? |
| 41. Keśava Miśra | 1225-1275 (D.C.Bhattacharya) | Mithilā | Tarkabhāṣā (T) |
| 42. Ānandānubhava | 1230-1280 | | Nyāyakālanidhi on Nyāyasāra (E) (Advaita works) |
| 43. Prabhākaropādhyāya | 1230-1280 (D.C.Bhattacharya) | Mithilā | ? |
| 44. Abhayatilaka | 1275-1325 (Jetly) | ? | Nyāyalaṃkāra on Nbh, NV,NVT and NVTP (M) |
| 45. Soṇḍaḍopādhyāya | 1275-1325 (D.C.Bhattacharya) | Mithilā | ? |

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| Name | Date | Place | Works |
| 46. Maṇikaṇṭha Miśra | 1275-1325 (D.C.Bhattacharya) | Mithilā | Nyāyaratna (E) Nyāyacintāmaṇi |
| 47. Śaśadhara | 1275-1325 (D.C.Bhattacharya) | Mithilā | Nyāyasiddhāntadīpa (E) Nyāyamīmāṃsāpra-karaṇa (M) Nyāyanaya (M) Śaśadharamālā (M) |
| 48. Taraṇi Miśra | 1300-1350 (D.C.Bhattacharya) | ? | Ratnakośa (M) |
| 49. Jagadguru | "before Gaṅgeśa" (D.C.Bhattacharya) | | C on Nyāyakusumāñjali |
| 50. Nyāyabhāskarakāra | "before Gaṅgeśa" (D.C.Bhattacharya) | | Nyāyabhāskara |
| 51. Raviśvara | "before Gaṅgeśa" (D.C.Bhattacharya) | | ? |

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*Questionable, or dates unknown*
52. ? | | | Bhāradvājavṛtti on Vaiśeṣikasūtras |
53. Viṣṇu Miśra | | | |
54. Vidyādharamiśra | | | |
55. Śrīkara | | | |
56. Candrānanda | | | Vaiśeṣikasūtravṛtti (E) |

II. Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika: Two Schools or One?

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Although there are two sets of sūtras, there is no doubt that each of the two schools accepted a great deal of what the other taught. The extent to which, for example, Uddyotakara utilized Vaiśeṣika doctrines in his Nyāya commentary has been shown to be of no mean proportion. At least one author appeals explicitly to the principle that if of the two sister schools one does not speak against the other's view it should be accepted that the two agree on the point.⁷

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In the light of this it seems unnecessary to speculate about just when "syncretism" between the two schools occurred. One scholar has suggested that Śivāditya's *Saptapadārthī* is the first syncretic work, since Śivāditya attempts "to combine the two systems...in one manual by a symmetrical representation and arrangement".⁸ In this special sense later handbooks such as *Tārkikarakṣā* and *Tarkabhāṣā* may also be called "syncretic." However, apart from this stylistic point, Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika have from the first considered themselves as mutually supportive, Nyāya specializing in epistemology and methodology, Vaiśeṣika in metaphysics.

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There were occasional points of disagreement between the philosophers of the two schools, however. Many of these were quite minor, and others are on points where even within each school there is by no means unanimity. Umesh Mishra⁹ has provided a useful list of these points of disagreement. Despite this, there seems no reason whatsoever not to treat Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers together under the same cover; on practically all fundamental questions they agree in opposing the various other systems of Indian thought.

III. Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika and the Other Systems of Indian Philosophy

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Besides the Buddhists, the Naiyāyikas jousted on occasion with philosophers representing several of the Hindu systems, notably the Vaiyākaraṇas, Mīmāṃsakas, Sāṃkhyas, and Advaita Vedāntins. There are very few references to the Jains in the works of our period; other varieties of Vedānta did not arise until the close of our period or even after that, though in the subsequent period of Navya-nyāya there was controversy with logicians of the Dvaita school of Madhva, for example.

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*Vaiyākaraṇas*: These philosophers developed the theory of meaning in early times. Scholars are now working on the views of these Grammarians, and we may be confident that the results of their researches will yield many insights into the origins of some of the speculations of the systematic schools such as Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika. There is reason to believe that many of the typical tendencies in Hindu thought had their antecedents in grammatical theories, though the influence went more or less unnoticed by the philosophers themselves. An occasionally more insightful philosopher such as Jayanta, however, expert in grammar as well as his own philosophical tradition, provides us with much material for deeper analyses of the sources of Nyāya views on meaning and truth. We shall deal with some of these views below.

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*Mīmāṃsakas*: As mentioned above, Pūrvamīmāṃsā had as its business in earliest times what may be likened to ethical theory, namely the exegesis of the scriptural injunctions which constituted the moral precepts accepted by the community and enshrined in the Vedas. In the course of this work the Mīmāṃsakas also developed characteristic views on meaning, validity, and truth, sometimes at odds with those of the Grammarians. Of particular importance to Nyāya was their theory about the nature of sound, which the Mīmāṃsā views as an eternal substance manifesting itself here and there as words and noises. Utilizing this theory, they were able to defend the eternity and authority of the Vedas. They were roundly attacked by Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika for this view, and the number of arguments that can be culled from the literature for and against the eternity of sound seems endless. This had its importance for logical theory, for in the heat of this battle both sides were forced continually to re-examine the nature of their arguments, and one hears that many debates were held, no doubt regulated by the rules of debate which we find promulgated in one form or another in such books as the Nyāyasūtras.

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Mīmāṃsā does not really flower into a philosophical system in the full sense until the time of Kumārila (620-680) and Prabhākara (650-720), that is, until approximately the time of the 300-year gap we referred to in Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika literature. In studying the polemics between Buddhism and its realistic opponents during this gap, scholars have been able to replace the lacking Nyāya works with Kumārila's Ślokavārttika, for in it the author sets out many of the characteristic Nyāya doctrines and arguments. But there are important differences, particularly in epistemology, separating Nyāya and Kumārila. Much the same sort of thing can be said about the views of Prabhākara, which in some respects might be held to provide a via media between Buddhism and Nyāya. Epistemologically Prabhākara is if anything even more uncompromisingly realistic than Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika; but ontologically he shows tendencies to nominalism which did not fit with Nyāya predilections.

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Sāṃkhya: This system is one of the oldest among the Hindu schools. In some form or other, Sāṃkhya appears to date back several centuries before Christ, and many scholars have suggested affinities between early Sāṃkhya and Buddhism. The Mahābhārata, probably the older of the two great Indian epics, presents Sāṃkhya philosophy in many places, notably in the mouth of Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavadgītā. It is not always easy to identify the source of opponents' arguments in the early Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika texts, but clearly Vātsyāyana addresses himself to Sāṃkhya arguments in several places and implies that the Nyāyasūtras also were directed toward that quarter. The most important controversy between Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika and Sāṃkhya is over the nature of causation, a topic which can be viewed as crucial to all other problems of metaphysics and epistemology. The Sāṃkhyas were the champions of the view that the effect exists in potency already in its cause, which merely needs to be nudged in order to make the effect manifest to observation. The Sāṃkhya, to be sure, conceived this version of change to be a process which takes place in the real world external to our minds; yet merely to describe the view serves to suggest why the Naiyāyikas looked askance at it, for it suggests that an effect is so because we the observers, are aware of it when previously we were not. Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika proposes instead a view of causation according to which the effect does not exist until the moment of its origination. This view has more affinity with Buddhism than with most of the other Hindu systems, for the Buddhists believed that the effect came into being after the cause. However, the crucial difference still remains that the Naiyāyika believes in real continuants, while the Buddhist explains continuants away as mere appearance; in reality all there is for Buddhists are momentary events.

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It appears also that the Sāṃkhya thinkers were among the first to propose systematic techniques which warrant the title of "logic," and it was their logical theories which were prevalent in the period prior to the compilation of the Nyāyasūtras.¹⁰ Frauwallner thinks that some of the puzzling aspects of the classification of types of inference are cleared up by referring to this old Sāṃkhya logic, which seems to have remained prominent until the 5th century or so.

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Rather little is heard of Sāṃkhya in our texts during the later centuries. Sāṃkhya seems to have had few defenders. Vācaspati Miśra wrote a commentary on the Sāṃkhyakārikās in the 10th century, but after that until the so-called Sāṃkhyasūtras composed apparently in the 13th or 14th century there is practically speaking no Sāṃkhya activity at all. It would seem that many of the Sāṃkhya ideas were absorbed during this period into the thought of the Vedānta schools.

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Advaita Vedānta: Considering the importance of this school in recent times, when it has become so prevalent as to be frequently mistaken for the only kind of Indian philosophy extant, it is interesting to notice how long it takes this school to catch the attention of the Nyāya writers. We find an occasional reference to the Advaitin Maṇḍana Miśra in works of the 9th and 10th century, but I have found no reference in the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika literature of that period to Śaṃkarācārya, acclaimed nowadays as India's greatest philosophical mind. In fact, it is not until the time of Udayana that Advaita clearly begins to call for attention on the part of the Naiyāyikas. There is a tradition that Udayana once defeated in debate one Śrīhīra, whose son was Śrīharṣa, the author of several famous literary works. Śrīharṣa, who may be held to have lived around 1075-1125, avenged his father by writing a barbed critique of Nyāya called Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya. This work espouses Advaita, albeit a rather negative version of Advaitic teachings more akin to that of Śaṃkara's pupil Sureśvara than to the more positive teachings of Maṇḍana or Padmapāda, say. Several Naiyāyikas were moved to write answers to Śrīharṣa's polemic. It is quite unusual in the history of Indian thought to find members of one school writing commentaries on a text of another school with an eye to refuting its arguments, Refutations of other schools are the business of the day in Indian thought, but one normally appends one's arguments to a text which sets forth the truth as one sees it, introducing and confuting opponents who dare to challenge the master. A Ṭīkā by the Divākara listed above was the only one of these anti-Śrīharṣa commentaries that we know to have been written on the Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya prior to Gaṅgeśa, but quite a few Navya-naiyāyikas also wrote such commentaries. And in any case after the time of Śrīharṣa, Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika could not ignore Advaita, though even then one remains surprised at the infrequency with which Advaita views are attacked. It is perhaps noteworthy that at least one of the writers of the post-Udayana period, Ānandānubhava, was apparently an Advaitin who dabbled in logic; the bulk of his writings were in Vedānta, but he wrote at least one occasional commentary on a Nyāya text. Does this presage the modern reconciling tenor of Vedāntins, who tend to see other systems as partial approximations to the full monistic insight, or as necessary stages in a dialectic leading to Advaitic enlightenment?

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Jainism: References to Jain views in the classical Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika texts are very rare. Jain writers did on occasion write on Nyāya topics during the latter part of our period. One of these was Abhayatilaka (1275-1325); there were others later in the post-Gaṅgeśa period.

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Cārvāka: It is clear that from the time of the Buddha and Mahāvīra onward for many centuries there were skeptics who found the pretensions of Brahminical philosophy with its faith in spiritual values a belief without substance. Just about all the works of these "materialists," as they are usually called by Indian writers, have been lost or destroyed. Yet, the frequency with which our writers address themselves to skeptical doubts indicates their need to justify each plank in their philosophy not only to believers, Hindus like themselves, but to nonbelievers as well.

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IV Was there any Influence from or to Western Philosophy

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This question was asked frequently by scholars of a number of decades back who were struck by what they considered strong affinities between Nyāya and Aristotelian logic. Since it has become clear that these affinities are the result of inadequate information or reflection, the quest for evidence of mutual influence has died away. The truth is that (as far as philosophical ideas are concerned)

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there is very little, if any, evidence of direct borrowing by Indians from the West until near-contemporary times. As for the influence of Indian thought on the West, there is no doubt that Neoplatonism owed a good deal to Oriental mysticism, and other relationships can be attested to throughout the centuries.

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Restricting ourselves to the field of logic, Frenkian¹¹ has found specific influences of Indian logical speculations on Greek thought as early as the second half of the 4th century B.C. “Firstly, the image of the coiled rope taken for a snake was used as illustration of the doctrine of Carneades in the 2nd century B.C. Secondly, the quadrilemma seems to have been employed by Pyrrhon, the founder of the Greek skeptical school of philosophy in earlier times, in the 2nd half of the 4th century B.C.”¹² He also points out that Sextus Empiricus, though he alone, uses as example of inference the Indian stock argument about there being fire on the mountain because there is smoke. The first two of these characteristically Indian allusions—the rope-snake illusion and the quadrilemma—are more Buddhist than Hindu, at least in those early days of which Frenkian speaks. But the smoke-fire illustration of inference must have been well-known in proto-Nyāya before the time of Sextus Empiricus (2nd to 3rd century A.D.), though it is of course possible that Sextus thought it up on his own. All in all, we must be sober in our judgments on this exciting possibility of mutual East-West influence; repeated efforts by reputable scholars have found precious little to show any conscious borrowing.

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Cites (42)