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Karin Preisendanz
Debate and Independent Reasoning vs. Tradition
237
contentional discourse in the concluding sätra of the fourth book," are placed in the service of protecting the soteriologically relevant determination of the true nature of things, namely, verbal contest (alpa) and vitanda, i.e., - if it is assumed that the term is used here in the same way as in the first book - a dispute in which only one of the participants attempts to prove a particular position. Although the basic hostility and aperessiveness which characterizes them is not denied, a dispassionate disputant, when using them in this beneficial and meritorious function, is free of moral reproach, as one can infer from the illustration "just as one screens off sa plot of land) by means of thorny branches for the sake of protecting the development of seeds. *** The similarity of this example with the example used apologetically at the very beginning of the Buddhist text on debate known as Upayahrdaya," which is unfortunately only preserved in a Chinese translation datable to 472 AD,"points towards the fact that the cutout inserted here between books four and five of the Mydyasútra conserves material belonging to a related tradition of debate, which shared its intellectual environment of origin with the Nyaya, close to the related tradition as reflected in the Caracasamhitd, but also in some respects close to a Buddhist tradition of debate partaking of this very environment to a degree - material that found its way into the Nyayasútra at the time when the basic tenets of the Nyaya school, developed from an older tradition of debate within the common environment, had been fixed into a manual, now sheltered in books one and five, and gradually supplemented and rounded off with the dialectically structured books two, three and four
To sum up for those early Naiyāyikas who were responsible for the insertion and phrasing of the two sequences 38-45 and 46-50 at the conclusion of Mydyasútra 4.2, the Nyaya is indeed a science concerning the Self due to its inclusion of Selforiented yogic practices (cf. the keywords samddhivisesa, yoga and demasamiskdra). practices which are meaningful activities directly and indirectly aimed at achieving adequate knowledge and release through it. The foundational Nyāya activity of debate in its three accepted varieties, which forms a central topic and concern of the school, is not in contradiction to these activities and their purpose; on the contrary, the latter are vigorously supported by it in more than one way. The closeness to the orthodox tradition where the practice concerning the Self (adhyatmavidhi) is authoritatively anchored and cultivated is also warranted by the fact that the basic type of debate, the colloquy, is meant and envisioned to take place between persons who identify and comply with this tradition. Now, this justification of debate is at the same time a justification of its means and the intense occupation with them; their refinement eventually serves the achievement of soteriologically relevant adequate knowledge. A glance at the characterizations of the three types of debate provided earlier on in NS 1.2.1-3, in the portion of the Mydyasútra sheltering the typically Nyaya manual of debate, reveals that the various components of debate include the most important among the 16 relevant topics of the school. This applies especially to the characterization of the basic type of debate, there simply designated as udda:
Debate consists in the taking up of a position and a counter-position in which proof and censure are accomplished) through the use of the means valid cognition (pramdna) and reasoning (tarka), which is not in contradiction to established tenets, and which is endowed with the five parts (of proof). **
CF NS 4.2.50: tábhyan vigshyakathanam
66 RUBEN, followed by MEUTHRATH, understands the compound differently similar to the case of 4.2.46 (cf. above n. 60) he interprets adityawadyasamuralsand as a dvandve-compound: however, I wonder how one could protect (or defend) the truth in the sense of the true nature of things cama) (cf. RUBEN 1928, 128 and MEUTHRATH 1996, 201). MATILAL speaks more adequately of the protection of one's learning, restricting, however, this function of the two types of debate to the young beginner (cf. MATILAL 1990, 15).
C. NS 4.2.49: tatryddhyavasdyasamraksandtham jalpavisande bljapraroharapraksandtham kantakadikhdaranavat. This stora is quoted e.g., in Mydyakunudacandra (NKC) p. 319.2 and in Prandnamimdmsd (PM) on sutra 30. p. 63,21-22, in the latter with the variant reading paricaranya. Bhisarvajfia quotes only the first compound in NBA p. 11,8.
"Cf. Updyahrdaya (UH) 23b, retranslated into Sanskrit in Tuca 1929b, Part 1, Upayahrdaya, p. 3; see also KANO 1998, 38.
TUCCI refers to Prabodh Baccu's Le canon bouddhique en Chine, Vol. I, Paris 1927, for an earlier translation by Buddhabhadra belonging to the Eastern Tsin dynasty (who died in 429 AD according to BAGCHI, P. 344) that has been lost (cf. TUCCI 1929b, xi), a piece of information obviously not taken up by Yuichi KAITYAMA (cf. KAIYAMA 1991, 107)
At the heart of debate we thus find the means of valid cognition, four in number according to NS 1.1.3 and including verbal communication (Sabda) which comprises tradition as the instruction of a trustworthy person". Reference to tradition thus appears as an integral part of debate. Of equal relevance as the pramdna-s in the characterization of debate is reasoning (tarka), which just as the pramdņa-s and the five parts of proof constitutes a separate relevant topic of the Nyaya; it is character
CINS 1.2.1:praninatarkasddhanopdiambhah siddhandviruddhah parovayavopaparnah paksapratipokaparigrahovdan
a. NS 1.1.7.