Paksilasvamins Introduction To His Nyayabhasyam

SR No.: 269261
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Gerhard Oberhammer
Publisher: Gerhard Oberhammer
Total Pages: 21
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 2 MB

Page 20

PAKŞILASVĀMIN'S INTRODUCTION TO HIS NYĀYABHĀŞYAM 321 ry relation to each other it is nyayah which makes Vada to be that movement of thought which leads to the knowledge of the truth, while the nyāyaḥ as verbal expression belongs essentially and originally to the Vada, without which it would not be possible. If, therefore, nyāyah is that method which constitutes the Nyāya philosophy, and further, if the Vada is that historically given milieu for the search of truth, in which the method of the nyāyaḥ must be applied, then it will be absolutely clear that all those categories of the Nyāyasūtras,53 which define and explain the phenomenon of Vada and give it its norm, could not only not be suppressed in the Nyāya philosophy as understood by Pakşilasvamin, but, historically speaking, are constitutive and necessary elements of the system.
. In this paper, whose aim is to ascertain the idea Pakșilasvāmin had regarding the nature of Nyāya as a philosophy, it is not necessary to show in detail how he brings each of these categories in relation with the Vada. It is enough to sum up the main results of this study:
1. Paksilasvamin considers the Nyāya as a rationally worked out and rationally working doctrine of liberation (adhyatmavidya), and hence he identifies it with the Anvīksikī of Kautilya. In doing so, he makes explicit the conception which the school of Nyaya had regarding its own nature, namely, the conception of the school as a philosophical system, and not merely as logic or dialectical doctrine. . 2. The element that constitutes this philosophy is the rational method of nyāyaḥ, and as such, it had not only to be applied, but also to be taught and studied as topic of the system. The Nyaya is, therefore, also doctrine of nyāyaḥ and of the logical and dialectical categories conditioning this nyāyaḥ.
3. In accordance with the old school tradition, the method of nyāyaḥ, for Paksilasvämin, is primarily the syllogism, namely syllogism as verbally expressed in discussion, and not as formalized inference; for inference is itself a Pramāņa, and not an inquiry with the help of Pramana. Therefore, the process which leads to the attainment of truth is, really speaking, the Vada working with syllogism. From this historically given situation follows that the Nyāya, in as far as it is the doctrine of nyāyaḥ, is necessarily to be considered also as a doctrine of Vada and its conditioning categories.
53 Ct. Note 40.