A History of Indian Logic: Ancient, Medieval and Modern Schools

The volume offers the history of Nyaya-one of the six schools into which orthodox philosophy in India is divided. The word. ‘Logic’ although it is in common parlance held synonymous with Indian Nyaya, is not exactly indentical with it. Logic covers some of the subjects of Nyaya as well as Vaisesika but is not co-extensive with either. The author has in this work clearly marked the principal stages of Indian logic in the vast period of about two thousand years beginning from 640 B.C. and has traced how from Anviksiki-the science of debate, Indian logic developed into the science of knowledge-Pramanasastra, and then into science of dialectics-Prakarana of Tarkasastra. The treatment of the subject is both historical and critical. The author has traced some Greek influence on Indian logic. For instance he has shown how the five-membered syllogism of Aristotle found its way through Alexandria, Syria and other countries into Taxila and got amalgamated with the Nyaya doctrine of inference. The book is one of the pioneer works on the subject. It has drawn on original sources exhaustively. Besides the preface, introduction, foreword, the work contains several appendices and indexes.