أكشاباد غوتاما

الأعمال

• نحو 150نيايا سوترا

  ستة عشر موضوعًا، من وسائل المعرفة الصحيحة إلى حِيَل الجدل غير النزيه: التحرّر بالمعرفة الصحيحة.

الموقف

Nyaya (“method” or “logic”) holds that the world exists independently of us and can be known. The sutra lists sixteen topics, beginning with the means of valid knowledge (pramanas): perception, inference, comparison and reliable testimony. Inference is set out in five steps – thesis, reason, example, application, conclusion: the hill has fire, because it has smoke; wherever there is smoke there is fire, as in a kitchen. The text also distinguishes honest discussion from debate aimed at victory and from mere cavilling, and catalogues fallacies and tricks. Liberation follows when right knowledge removes false cognition. Joined to Vaisheshika ontology, Nyaya was developed by Udayana and transformed by Gangesha.

الحياة والسياق

Akshapada Gautama is the name tradition gives the author of the Nyaya Sutra; a legend explains “Akshapada” (“eyes in the feet”) by a thinker so lost in thought he needed eyes in his feet. Nothing reliable is known about him. The sutra grew in layers, probably reaching its present form around the 2nd–3rd century CE; some passages seem to answer Buddhist critics such as Nagarjuna, though this is debated.

أعمال رئيسة أخرى

• Nyaya Sutra (final form c. 2nd–3rd century CE; parts older)
• Vatsyayana, Commentary on the Nyaya Sutra (Nyayabhashya, c. 5th century CE)

يرد في

• رحلة «من يقرّر ما يُعدّ معرفة؟» · المحطة 1 من 9
• رحلة «دروب الفكر الهندي» · المحطة 6 من 9