Indian Logic Part 01

Author(s): Nagin J Shah
Publisher: Sanskrit Sanskriti Granthmala

Page 11

INDIAN LOGIC
Mimāṁsakas; and all Buddhists wore a champion of Buddhist orthodoxy in one version or another. But the point to be noted is that these Nyaya - Vaiseşika, Mimamsā and Buddhist philosophers could manage to pursue rational erquires with the problems of logic and metaphysics in a manner considerably unhirdered by their respective theological affiliations. These were the three trends that dominated the scene in the period when the country witnessed a genuine bloom in philosophical activity, but three more deserve notice for one reason or another. Thus Sankhya was a venerated school of hoary antiquity but its history exhibits no phase that bears a genuine impact of the radical ways of thought introduced by the Nyāya - Vai aşika philosophers; so in the period of mature philosophization this school invariably attracted pissing attention but never more than passing attention, Then there was the Advaita Vedānta school of Gaudapāda and Sankara. It appeared on the scene somehow late but was destined to grow considerably influential as days went by. However, its arsenal of arguments was essentially a borrowing from Buddhist idealism and so whatever was ever said about the latter essentially applied to it too. But as a matter of fact, even in the · later works of the Nyāya-Vaiseșika and Mimamsā schools schools which had been uncompromising in their criticism of Buddhist idealism - polemics against Advaita Vedānta are a rare occurrence. Lastly, there was the Jaina school in whose history too a phase ensued when rational enquiries into the problems of logic and metaphysics were undertaken in right earnest. This phase appeared somewhat late but not very late, and yet the fact remains that the Jaina works representing even this phase were left almost entirely unnoticed by the other schools. Of this over all situation as it developed in the field of Indian philosophical speculation Jayanta in his Nyāyamañjari has drawn a very reliable picture so full of invaluable details.
Jayanta has composed his work by way of commenting on certain selected aphorisms of Nyāya-sūtra, the basic text of his school -- to be precise, on those so few aphorisms of the first chapter where the sixteen padārthas (= fundamental topics) posited