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64
KARIN PREISENDANZ
thus it would be unjustified to speak of blind traditionalism or lack of historical consciousness on the part of the Nyāya scholars.
The defence of the authority of the Nyāyaśāstra against the powerful Buddhist epistemologists constituted the main inner or intellectual motivation of the commentators whose works have been preserved; the frequent references by Buddhist authors of the classical period to other, now lost commentaries allow the inference that their authors as well participated in this defence. This fruitful controversy reached its culmination in the early medieval period, in the eleventh century. Now the debate is for the first time conducted in truly independent treatises, foremost by the great logician Udayana. Udayana was obviously dissatisfied with the many commentaries and sub-(sub-)commentaries on the Nyāyasūtra which were after all formally and structurally bound by the given, partially very archaic formulations and argumentation of their root text(s), and no longer convinced about the effectiveness of works belonging to this genre when the logically impeccable establishment of the central metaphysical presuppositions of the Nyāya tradition against the formidable Buddhists was concerned. However, next to his famous treatises establishing the existence of an individual and permanent Self (ātman) and the existence of an omniscient eternal creator-god, the Atmatattvaviveka and the Nyāyakusumāñjali, and two small works which present exhaustive definitions pertaining to the central topics of the Nyāya system, the Lakşaņāvali and the Laksanamālā, Udayana also devoted himself to writing a commentary on Vācaspati Miśra's commentary on the Nyāyavārttika; this occurred demonstrably and, I think, significantly after he had completed his independent treatises.28
Commenting on Vācaspati's comments on Uddyotakara's mangalasloka, Udayana makes a few remarks that point to his historical understanding of the Nyāya tradition. He considers the Nyāyavārttika an ancient (cirantana) composition that has been embraced or recognized by great personalities (mahājanaparigrhīta), obviously a sign of its authority. Nevertheless, there are many other such compositions; why bother about this one? In the course of his discussion Udayana suggests inter alia that its tradition may have been interrupted or broken off. Elaborating upon Vācaspati's cow-metaphor (cf. above, p. 60) he speaks of Uddyotakara's philosophical tradition as the cows' (i.e., words') youth; this youth,
28 Cf. Chemparathy (1972: 22-25).