Nyāya Sūtras
[5][6][7] The Nyāya Sūtras is a Hindu text,[note 1] notable for focusing on knowledge and logic, and making no mention of Vedic rituals.
[3] It set the foundation for Nyaya tradition of the empirical theory of validity and truth, opposing uncritical appeals to intuition or scriptural authority.
[3] According to Karl Potter, this name has been a very common Indian name,[16] and the author is also reverentially referred to as Gotama, Dirghatapas and Aksapada Gautama.
[3] Some scholars favor the theory that the cryptic text Nyaya-sutras was expanded over time by multiple authors,[3] with the earliest layer from about mid-first millennium BCE that was composed by Gautama.
One may sum up the situation pretty safely by saying that we have not the vaguest idea who wrote the Nyayasutras or when he lived.It is likely, states Jeaneane Fowler, that Nyaya and the science of reason stretch back into the Vedic era; it developed in the ancient Indian tradition that involved "dialectical tournaments, in the halls of kings and schools of Vedic philosophers", and Gautama was the one who distilled and systematized this pre-existing knowledge into sutras, or aphoristic compilations called nyayasutras.
[5] This cooperation has enabled scholars to place the currently surviving version of the Nyayasutras, to a terminus ante quem (completed before) date of about the 2nd century CE, because one of the most famous and established Buddhist scholars of that era, Nagarjuna, explicitly states, "sutra 4.2.25 is addressed against the Madhyamika system" of Buddhism.
A sutra is a Sanskrit word that means "string, thread", and represents a condensed manual of knowledge of a specific field or school.
[20][21] Each sutra is any short rule, like a theorem distilled into few words or syllables, around which "teachings of ritual, philosophy, grammar or any field of knowledge" can be woven.
[18] The first sutra 1.1.1 of the text asserts its scope and the following sixteen categories of knowledge as a means to gain competence in any field of interest:[18] Perfection is attained by the correct knowledge about true nature of sixteen categories: means of right knowledge (pramāṇa); object of right knowledge (prameya); doubt (samsaya); purpose (prayojana); familiar instance (dṛṣṭānta); established tenet (siddhānta); members of an inference (avayava); reasoning (tarka); ascertainment or results (nirṇaya); discussion (vāda); sophistic disputations (jalpa); cavil (vitaṇḍa); fallacies (hetvābhāsa); quibbles (chala); futile rejoinders (jāti); and methods of losing an argument (nigrahasthāna).
[30][34] Gautama dedicates many sutras to discuss both the object and subject in the process of perception, and when senses may be unreliable.
[30][32] It defines indefinite knowledge as one where there is doubt, and the text gives an example of seeing a distant stationary object in the evening and wondering whether it is a post or a man standing in the distance.
[30] Manas (mind) is considered an internal sense, in the text, and it can either lead to correct or incorrect knowledge depending on how it includes, excludes or integrates information.
[39] It is a means of gaining knowledge based on "similarity, comparison, analogy", and considered reliable in Nyaya and many schools of Indian Darshanaparampara (but not in Vaisheshika and Charvaka, or Buddhism).
[44] Comparison is, in Nyayasutras, the process of permeating or infusing hypothesis, examples and tests, thus leading to objectivity and correct knowledge about something new and what one already presumes to know.
[49][50] He must rely on others, his parents, family, friends, teachers, ancestors and kindred members of society to rapidly acquire and share knowledge and thereby enrich each other's lives.
[60] Doubt is neither error nor absence of knowledge, but a form of uncertainty and human struggle with probability when it faces incomplete or inconsistent information.
[63] The five fallacies or errors, according to Nyayasutras, are to be avoided, in addition to watching for debating tricks (chala) used by those whose aim isn't true knowledge.
[70][73] The text seeds the theory of negative entities, where both being and non-being, presence and absence of something is considered correct and useful knowledge.
[74] Early Nyaya school scholars considered the hypothesis of Ishvara as a creator God with the power to grant blessings, boons and fruits.
[78] The 5th century CE Nyaya school scholar Prastapada, for example, revisited the premise of God.
He was followed by Udayana, who in his text Nyayakusumanjali, interpreted "it" in verse 4.1.21 of Nyaya Sutra above, as "human action" and "him" as "Ishvara", then he developed counter arguments to prove the existence of Ishvara, a reasoning that fueled the debate and disagreements on God in Neo-Nyaya and other Hindu traditions of 2nd millennium CE.
A large part of the third book of the Nyayasutras is dedicated to the premise and the nature of a Self (soul, atman) and its relation to knowledge, liberation from sorrow and inner freedom (moksha).
[84][85] Meditation is a treasured and recommended practice in the text, and extensively discussed by Nyaya scholars that followed Aksyapada Gautama.
[87] In some cases, asserts the text, it is better to avoid arguing with hostile opponents and use methods of knowledge like "a fence is used to safeguard the growth of seeds".
[13][14] Numerous other commentaries are referenced in other Indian historical texts, but these manuscripts are either lost or yet to be found.
Starting around 11th- to 12th century CE, Udayana wrote a primary work, that built upon and expanded the theories on reason found in Nyayasutras.
[16][note 3] Nagarjuna's Madhyamika-karika targets Nyaya-sutra, among other Hindu texts, for his critique and to establish his doctrine of no self and voidness.
[citation needed] The Nyayasutras were influential to the Vedanta schools of Hindu philosophy, and provided the epistemological foundations.
[99][100] The terms Nyaya and Mimamsa were synonymous, states Hajime Nakamura, in the earliest Dharmasutras of 1st millennium BCE.
