Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/318

 NYAYA AND VAISESIKA

HE philosopher Gautama was the Aristotle of India, and his system of Nyaya is the Hindu logic, which is still studied in India along the traditional lines, even though the number of teachers and pupils is growing less year by year. The date of Gautama is not known, but he lived in the Philosophic Period, probably a century after Kapila. The Nyaya Sutra, which is ascribed to him, is divided into five books, each subdivided into two "days," or diurnal lessons, and these are again divided into articles, each of which consists of a number of Sutras.

The Nyaya system starts with the subjects to be discussed, which are fourteen in number: proof, problem, doubt, motive, instance or example, determined truth, argument or syllogism, confutation, ascertainment, controversy, jangling, objection, fallacy, perversion, futility, and controversy.

Proof is of four kinds: Perception, inference, analogy, and verbal testimony. Cause (karana) is that which necessarily precedes an effect, which could not be without the cause; and effect (karya) is that which Rh