Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Vada in Theory and Practice: Studies in Debates, Dialogues and Discussions in Indian Intellectual Discourses c5.s17: Documenting Vādas

Vāda in Theory and Practice: Studies in Debates, Dialogues and Discussions in Indian Intellectual Discourses c5.s17

Language
English

Documenting Vādas

c5.s17.1

One of the most comprehensive works on *vāda* in practice is *Nīlakeśī* (*Neelakesi*) — a Tamil text giving account of the debates of Nīlakeśī, a Jaina nun around fourth-fifth centuries. The biographies of philosophers like Śaṅkarācārya in Sanskrit written between fourteenth and eighteenth centuries, and accounts of the life and deeds of Diṅnāga and Dharmakīrti from Chinese and Tibetan sources provide detailed accounts of the public debates these philosophers entered with their rivals. These biographical accounts sometimes tend to become mythical and over-exaggerated.

c5.s17.2

There are some Saṁgraha texts that put various systems of philosophy with a view to present the debates amongst them. *Ṣaḍdarśanasamuccaya* of Haribhadra and *Sarvadarśanasaṁgraha* of Mādhavācārya are examples of such attempts.⁷⁹ Mādhavācārya presents the systems in an ascending order of their acceptability according to him. The least acceptable ones are treated in the beginning and the systems like Pātañjala Yoga and Śāṅkara-Vedānta are discussed in the last chapters to suggest that they are the most perfect ones. Mādhavācārya takes up the main contention of each system, then refutation of the other systems according to it, and then the arguments that have been advanced therein for possible doubts and objects that may be raised by other systems.

Linked texts (2)