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 3

ASIAN STUDIES
therefore, points to a philosophical elaboration of an old Väda exposition.
304
If we compare this elaborated text, which must have been the first real text of the Nyaya school, with the version of the NS which Paksilasvamin comments on, we see that this oldest Nyaya work (=Adhyayas I and V of the NS) was enlarged according to the cosmological interest of the school. On the other hand, no essential enlargement was made in the sections on the real Vada. categories, except in the case of the philosophically important category of the Pramāņas. Thus, we see a clear trend of development from the Vada doctrine to a cosmological doctrine of liberation.
If we compare Caraka's Vada exposition with that of the NS, we find that the earlier Vada expositions might have had included as topic also a system of metaphysical concepts, appearing in the NS as Prameya. This system of concepts could vary from school to school and was, so to say, inserted in a special place of their Vada exposition, which, within the leading Vada traditions, must have been the same for different philosophical. systems. Thus we find in Caraka's exposition the six categories of the older Vaiseṣikam, while in the case of the Vada text, which forms the basis of Adhyayas 1 and 5 of the NS, a cosmological doctrine of liberation (NS I, 1, 9-22) was inserted. Through this insertion and the rearrangement of the topics (Cf. Note 5) must have come into being from a Vada exposition that oldest Nyaya work, which roughly corresponds to Adhyayas 1 and 5 of the NS (Cf. W. Ruben: Die Nyayasutren, Leipzig 1928, p. XV). Together with this adaptation of the Vāda text also NS I, 1, 1-2 must have been added, which must have been likewise absent in the old Vada text, since the problem of liberation was a philosophical problem and not proper to a Vada doctrine.
7 We are justified in assuming the cosmological interest of the school not only if we start from the hypothesis that Adhyayas 3-4 of the NS are amplifications made by the teachers of the school, but also if we start from the theory that the teachers of the Nyaya school at a particular stage had amalgamated the work of a cosmological school with the NS of Adhyāyas 1 and 5 (perhaps also 2). This last hypothesis seems to be supported by the fact that Tucci has found Sutras of Adhyayas 3 and 4 of the NS not quoted as Nyayasutras even in the 4th century. Cf. G. Tucci: Pre-Dinnaga Buddhist Texts on Logic from Chinese Sources, p. XXVII ff.
NS II, 1, 8; II, 2, 12.