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228 OUTLINES OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY became the chief object of attainment. However acute these discussions and whatever their value as means of mental discipline, they must be pronounced as for the most part philosophically barren. They are subtle rather than profound. Several commentaries and sub-commentaries on the Tattva-cintamani have been written. It will suffice to mention here those of Vasudeva Sārvabhauma (A.D. 1500), the first of what is called the 'Nuddea school of logicians and of Raghunātha Siromani-his pupil along with Caitanya, the renowned Bengali religious teacher. Raghunātha's commentary on Gangesa's work, which is the best of its class, is known as the Didhiti. Gadādhara, who belonged to the same school, commented upon it, and it is his commentary in its various sections or Vädas that has since become the staple of advanced study in schools that teach Nyāya not only in Bengal, but all over the country. Gadādhara has been described as the prince of Indian schoolmen. Roughly speaking he lived in the same time as Lord Bacon whose denunciations of scholasticism, as a modern writer observes, may be 'most appositely illustrated by extracts from Gadādhara's writings.' Amongst the numerous manuals treating of the system, we have already mentioned the two most important—the Tarka-saṁgraha and the Karikávali, which have been explained by the authors themselves in the Dipika and the Siddhantamuktāvali respectively.
The system starts with the postulate that all knowledge by its very nature points to an object beyond it and independent of it. These objects, it is added, are independent not only of knowledge, but also of one another, whence the doctrine may be described as pluralistic realism. But by this description we should not assume that the data of knowledge are all disconnected. The multifarious things of experience are divisible into certain classes of which one called drayva, or 'substance, as it is commonly translated in English, is
Na cāvisayā kācidupalabdhih: NSB. IV. i. 32.
