The Nyaya-sutra: Selections with Early Commentaries

Description

Often translated simply as "logic," the Sanskrit word nyaya means "rule of reasoning" or "method of reasoning." Texts from the school of classical Indian philosophy that bears this name are concerned with cognition, reasoning, and the norms that govern rational debate. This translation of selections from the early school of Nyaya focuses on its foundational text, the Nyaya-sutra (c. 200 CE), with excerpts from the early commentaries. It will be welcomed by specialists and non-specialists alike seeking an accessible text that both represents some of the best of Indian philosophical thought and can be integrated into courses on Indian philosophy, religion, and intellectual culture.

Matthew Dasti is Associate Professor of Philosophy, Bridgewater State University. Stephen Phillips is Professor of Philosophy and Asian Studies, The University of Texas at Austin.

I have been teaching Introduction to Hindu Philosophy courses for almost twenty years and have always lamented the lack of a usable, student-friendly reader on Nyaya, which, of all the Vedic schools, is the one most committed to rational argumentation. Dasti and Phillips volume fills the bill beautifully and will be the go-to source in the field for a good generation and more. Edwin F. Bryant, Professor of Religion, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey "Matthew Dasti and Stephen Phillips have done the philosophical world, and teachers and students of philosophy, a great favor in presenting this superb translation of major portions of the Nyaya-sutra with selections from its most important commentaries. This text is central to the history of Indian epistemology and metaphysics, and was influential well beyond the world of Nyaya, and its most important philosophical passages are presented here. Dasti and Phillips translations of this often-technical text are fluent and clear, rendering it in accessible but precise philosophical English. Their explanatory notes are clear, accurate, and concise. The inclusion of substantial extracts of the commentaries of Vatsyayana, Vacaspatimisra, and Uddyotakara is especially welcome. Not only do these masterful commentaries extend and explain the philosophical ideas in the sutra, but they demonstrate to the reader the importance of reading this text through the commentarial tradition it inspires and the vitality of that tradition. This will be a valuable resource to scholars as well as to teachers and students." Jay Garfield, Professor of Philosophy, Smith College "A text that will give students ready access to arguments in support of Nya ya views on important topics in metaphysics, epistemology and value theory. The chapter on the self, for instance, lays out clearly the arguments for its existence based on such considerations as cross-modal synthesis, memory, agency and the occurrence of moral properties. Students will be able to follow these arguments. So a philosophy instructor who teaches Buddhist arguments for non-self and wants to fulfill their obligation as a philosopher, will no longer need to themselves supply possible objections to the Buddhist view. Instead they can simply allow the Nya ya-Buddhist debate over the self to play out in the words of the original interlocutors. Those of us who wish to see classical Indian philosophy take its rightful place in the undergraduate philosophy curriculum should celebrate its publication. . . . Let us hope that other scholars now take up the task of supplying comparable volumes for other parts of the classical Indian philosophical tradition. But this will be no easy task: Dasti and Phillips have set the bar quite high."