Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies Vol. 6

The second part on the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika system takes up where Volume II of the Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies left off, in the early fourteenth century with the pivotal figure of Gaṅgeśa, author of Tattvacintāmaṇi. It covers what we know of the history of the school up to and including Raghunātha Śiromaṇi, who flourished (we estimate) about 1510. In the two centuries covered there are some 50 authors whose names have come down to us as identifiable as having lived in this period, who are held to be responsible for some 98 works expounding or defending the principles of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika.

Beginning in 1350, in regions that are now Bihar and Bengal in northeast India, there was produced a vast literature embodying a methodology that not only provides a high point in Indian philosophy but also became extremely influential in many other branches of Indian thought, including law, jurisprudence, and literary theory. This volume, the sixth in Karl Potter's monumental series, deals with that literature. Thirty-three works by fifty authors dating from 1350 to 1510 represent the philosophy of Nyaya-Vaisesika in the early stages of what was to become known as Navyanyaya, the "new" Nyaya. An extensive introduction is included. The major works treated in this volume are Gaṅgeśa's initial masterpiece, Tattvacintamani, and its remarkable commentary by Raghunatha Siromani.

Perhaps the most dramatic development from the time of elder Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika to our period of Navyanyāya concerns the treatment of relations. The tendency in old Nyāya was to conceive of relations as entities belonging to one or another of the Vaiśeṣika categories. Thus inherence (samavāya) is counted as one of the seven fundamental categories (padārtha) of classical Vaiśeṣika, while contact (saṃyoga) and disjunction (vibhāga) are viewed as types of the second category, of qualities (guṇa). As time goes by there is a growing realization that each and every individual falling into one of the categories sustains relations with other individuals.Concern with theory of knowledge is high during the period we are surveying in this volume. We have already seen, in Chapter Two of this Introduction, how Navyanaiyāyikas develop a highly technical method of limitors and self-linking connectors to accomplish quantification and other procedures for precise reference. In a broad sense of “epistemology” all these concerns fall within its purview, but we forbear to repeat them here.