Nyaya Theory of Knowledge

Author(s): S C Chateerjee
Publisher: University of Calcutta

Page 16

PREFACE
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oldest chapters of the Mahābhārata (vide sabhā, anuśāsana and śānti parvas). We need not multiply such references. Those bere given show that the Nyāya as an art or science of reasoning existed in India long before the time of Gautama, the author of the Nyāya-Sūtra. As a matter of fact, it has been admitted by Vātsyāyana, Uddyotakara, Jayanta Bhatta and others that Gautama was not so much the founder of the Nyāya as its chief exponent who first gave an elaborate and systematic account of an already existing branch of knowledge, called nyāya, in the form of sūtras or aphorisms. It is in these sūtras that the Nyāya was developed into a realistic pbilosopby on a logical basis. Wbat was so long mere logic or an art of debate became a theory of the knowledge of reality. It is for this reason that the present work is based on the Nyāya-Sūtra and its main commentaries.
So far as the account of the ancient Nyāya is concerned, my sources of information are mainly the Nyāya-Sūtra, Nyāya-Bhāsya, Nyāyarāittika, Nyāyazārttikatātpanyatīkā, Tātparyaparıśuddhi, Nyāyamañjarī and Nyāyasūtravittı. In my account of the modern and syncretist schools of the Nyāya, I have mainly made use of Gangesa's Tattvacıntāmaņi with the commentary of Mathurānātha, Jagadīša's ?'arkām?. ta, Annam Bhatta's Tarkasañgruha and Dipikā, Varadarāja's Tārkıkarakṣā, Keśava Miśra's Tarkabhāṣā and Viśvanátba's Kārikāvalī with Siddhāntamuktālali and Dinakarī. I have also consulted several English expositions of Indian philosophy, like Dr. Jhā's Nyāya Philosophy of Gautama, Sır B. N. Seal's Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus, Sir S. Radhakrishnan's Indian Philosophy, Dr. D. M. Datta's Six Ways of Knowing, Professor Keith's Indian Logic and Atornism, Dr. S. N. Dasgupta's History of Indian Philosophy, and MM. Kuppuswāmi Sāstri's Primer of Indian Logic. My indebtedness to these and other works has been indicated by footnotes in the proper places.
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