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 4

PAKSILASVĀMIN'S INTRODUCTION TO HIS NYAYABHASYAM 305
Now the problem arises as to why this development did not finally lead to a total subordination of the logico-dialectical problems, as it happened, for example, in the case of the oldest Vaiseșika system, which had never integrated in its doctrines a Vada doctrine, though it must have known and possessed such expositions of the Vada-doctrine for the practice of school debates. This is all the more important since the logico-dialectical categories of the old Vada text were not necessarily topics of the cosmological doctrine of liberation of the oldest Nyāya school, and consequently could have easily been disposed of or subordinated as methodology to the system, as was done with the Tantrayuktis or Vada doctrine in Caraka. The reason why this was not the case seems to lie, among other reasons, mainly in the interpretation of the school as given to it by Paksilasvāmin.
II
Viewed historically, Paksilasvāmin's introduction to Nyāyabhāsyam marks the final stage of the attempts of the Nyāya to justify the objective value of knowledge, in general, and the sixteen categories of the school, in particular, against the criticism of cer
tain Buddhist schools. This justification is contained in the first · part (Nbh. 1, 1-2, 8) of the introductory chapter.
Starting from the fact of the ability to act (pravsttisāmarthyam), Pakșilasvāmin, on the supposition that knowledge of a
9 Though the Vāda exposition in Caraka, or more precisely the Vāda exposition which ought with the greatest probability to be assumed as its prototype, may not necessarily have been such an exposition, yet it shows that there were Vada expositions which were closely connected with the Vaiseșika school. Otherwise it would be difficult to explain the presence of Vaiseșika categories in Caraka's Vāda exposition.
10 This idea reminds one of the "arthakriyū" of Dharmakirti (600660 A.D.) from which this thinker deduced the validity of he means of knowledge.