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Reasoning As a Science, Its Role in Early Dharma Literature, and the Emergence of the Term Nyāya

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Reasoning As a Science, Its Role in Early Dharma Literature, and the Emergence of the Term Nyāya Reasoning as a Science, its Role in Early Dharma Literature, and the Emergence of the Term nyāya KARIN PREISENDANZ THE CULTURAL BACKGROUND OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LOGIC IN INDIA Previous research on the early development of Indian logic and its cultural background has placed a great deal of emphasis on the evi- dence provided by the early classical Āyurvedic tradition. To be sure, the probably already pre-classical tradition of debate with its inherent concern about convincing and correct procedures of proof contains important seeds for the development of logic, and its treat- ment found a special place in the Carakasaühitā. I will discuss in detail elsewhere the diametrically opposed positions of the pioneer- ing Indian scholars in this area, namely, Satishchandra Vidyabhusa- na and Surendranath Dasgupta, as regards the relationship between, on the one hand, the medical tradition, and, on the other, the early theories about debate and reflections on the proto-logical concepts embedded in it as exemplified by the Carakasaühitā.1 In this con- nection I take a middle position between their rather extreme views and attempt to demonstrate the particular importance of debate – responsible for an intense intellectual interest in it – in the medical context, drawing on the diverse evidence provided by the Caraka- saühitā itself. This interest, I argue, not only led to some specific- 1 Cf. Preisendanz, forthcoming. 28 KARIN PREISENDANZ ally medical theoretical treatment of the types of debate, their con- stitutive elements and their structure by Āyurvedic scholars,2 but also occasioned the integration of some theoretical framework of debate into the text of the Carakasaühitā, which consisted in the listing of various components of debate in the widest sense.3 This framework seems to have been designed in another intellectual set- ting, probably the milieu of those ancient Indian savants of diffe- rent scholarly pursuits who, just like the Āyurvedic scholars, were concerned with establishing a procedural structure and firm rules and guidelines for the mutual scholarly controversies as carried out by them in debate; it was then explicated, not altogether unconvinc- ingly, within the framework of the medical tradition’s own special concepts concerning the details of debate and exemplified for prac- tical purposes within the medical context. Another discourse in which early logical concepts could develop was, of course, the epistemological one, foremost in the context of inference as a means of knowledge. Here too a strong connection to the medical tradition can be made out on the evidence of the Carakasaühitā. The various means of knowledge involved in, and required for, a reliable diagnosis of the appropriate and successful treatment of diseases, received due attention in the work,4 and the important role of inference in the widest sense of the word for medical practice was duly recognized.5 Here also the early classical 2 Cf. CaS Vimānasthāna 8.15-26 and 67. 3 Cf. CaS Vimānasthāna 8.27-66. 4 Cf. CaS Vimānasthāna 4.3-4 (on three instruments of detailed knowledge of specifics of diseases [rogaviśeùavijñāna]), 8.79-82 and 8.83-132 (on the various objects of the twofold or threefold means of examination [parīkùā] used in diag- nosis). Cf. also the examples relating to the medical field of embryology adduced in the general characterization of inference and “combination” (yukti), both con- stituting means of examination (parīkùā), in Sūtrasthāna 11.21, 23 and 32. 5 Cf. the basic role of the signs (liïga) or symptoms of diseases expressed, e.g., in CaS Sūtrasthāna 1.24, which implies the necessity of their correct inter- pretation in the sense of an inference of the underlying disease. In the Kauśika- sūtra (KS 25.2), liïgin seems to be used as a special term to denote “disease” (cf. the commentator Dārilabhañña who glosses liïgin with vyādhi); cf. Dasgupta 1932: 293. Reasoning as a Science 29 Āyurvedic scholars were situated in a broader intellectual setting which may have partially overlapped with that in which debate was an issue,6 or had some strong affinity to it, namely, the setting of those scholars with various fields of specialisation who strove to come to grips with what constitutes a proper examination of the objects and issues of their special interest, with a focus on the means to conduct such an examination.7 As in the case of the dialectical-eristic discourse, the Āyurvedic tradition must also have participated in the epistemological discourse of the early classical period (1st to 3rd centuries) by contributing its own ideas8 and have integrated concepts developed by other thinkers belonging to the relevant intellectual milieu. The strong Āyurvedic concern with ex- amination (parīkùā) is documented in the Carakasaühitā by the several different contexts in which examination, its means and its objects are presented and in which the act of examination is re- ferred to and enjoined.9 On the stylistic level this concern involves the usage of a strikingly large variety of forms and derivates of the verbal root √īkù with the preverb pari-, but also with vi-, with ava-, the latter sometimes combined with anu- and sam-, and with sam- combined with abhi-, to mention the most frequent variations on the theme. Like the concern with debate, this concern with exam- ination, together with the terminological emphasis on “viewing from all sides”, i.e., comprehensive viewing (pari-√īkù), indicates 6 Cf. the listing of what may be six sources of knowledge in CaS Vimāna- sthāna 8.27 and their further treatment in 8.38-42. 7 Cf. the treatment of four sources of knowledge, called “means of examina- tion” (parīkùā) and “means of valid cognition” (pramāõa), in the context of the ascertainment of the “other world” (paraloka) in CaS Sūtrasthāna 11.7, 17-25 and 27 (for the designation as pramāõas cf. 11.33). 8 Cf. especially the notion of a means of knowledge called yukti (“combina- tion”). 9 Besides the contexts already mentioned above (i.e., diagnosis and meta- physical-soteriological inquiry), one may mention the contexts of debate, of finding a suitable expert tradition or doctrinal edifice (śāstra) in the area of medicine, the right teacher and the right student, of discerning a quack from a proper physician, of medical etiquette and a physician’s appropriate behavior in general, and of therapy. 30 KARIN PREISENDANZ an intellectual milieu that the early classical Āyurvedic scholars shared with scholars of the later, classical philosophical tradition of Nyāya as consolidated in the Nyāyasūtra and, in addition, with the authors of the religio-philosophical treatises assembled in the Vārùõeyādhyātma group of chapters found in the Mokùadharma section of the Mahābhārata. In the last-mentioned treatises, emphasis is put on “examination with reasons”, amplified by references to intellectual vision (jñāna- cakùus), consideration (vimarśa) and reasons (hetu); the last two terms are again shared with the Nyāyasūtra and with the Caraka- saühitā, which also mentions jñānacakùus.10 Indeed, although ex- amination – in the sense of the means of examination – as under- stood in the Carakasaühitā is of various types, including especially perception, inference, “combination” (yukti) and tradition, and al- though the act of thorough examination has accordingly to be understood as combining various means of examination, a strong emphasis on intellectual examination involving inference and, possibly, “combination” is implied by the term parīkùā, other deri- vations of pari-√īkù and related formations, and with it the use of reasons. Thus, both notions, i.e., the notion of examination in the specific sense of examination with reasons as well as the notion of the main means of examination characterized by reasoning, lead us to another, equally important historical context for the development of logic, namely, the “science” or art of reasoning described and highly praised in Kauñilya’s Arthaśāstra as the well-known “in- vestigating (science)” (ānvīkùikī [vidyā]).11 Similar to the arts of debate and comprehensive examination, ānvīkùikī (vidyā) under- stood as a method, an interpretation we owe especially to Paul Hacker’s observations,12 can be applied to various “sciences”, that is, areas of knowledge (vidyā),13 inasmuch as – as it is formulated 10 Cf. Preisendanz 2000: 239-240. 11 Cf. the famous passage AŚ 1.2.11-12. 12 Cf. Hacker 1958: 58, 64-65, 71-73. Reasoning as a Science 31 in the Arthaśāstra and unmistakenly echoed in a verse of the Vārùõeyādhyātma – one “investigates with reasons” their respec- tive chief issues as well as their strengths and weaknesses;14 it is therefore certainly justified to call ānvīkùikī (vidyā) “the lamp of all sciences”.15 Such an interpretation does not, however, rule out that ānvīkùikī (vidyā) was also considered to be a “science” proper with its own subject matter like the other three sciences mentioned in this context, namely, the Vedic science that has the triple sacred tradition as its subject matter (trayī), the science of material acqui- sition (vārttā) and the science of government (daõóanīti); that is, the designation ānvīkùikī (vidyā) may at the same time refer to a science concerned with understanding the process of reasoning and its constituents as its special object, and to a scientific methodology of reasoning developed in and on the basis of this science.16 REASONING IN CLASSIFICATIONS OF TYPES, METHODS AND AREAS OF KNOWLEDGE The four sciences (vidyā) treated in the relevant chapter of the Arthaśāstra (called vidyāsamuddeśa) and in subsequent Arthaśāstra and Arthaśāstra-related literature17 have sometimes been called the 13 Cf. also Halbfass’ remark, relating to ānvīkùikī (vidyā), that it was “a meth- od ... to be used by various branches of learning” (Halbfass 1988: 284). 14 Cf. Preisendanz 2000: 240. 15 Cf. Preisendanz 2000: 226-228, treating ānvīkùikī in the context of its great significance for Vātsyāyana when determining the place of the philosophical Nyāya tradition in the cultural and intellectual world of classical India.
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