Glimpses of Nyaya-Vaisesika

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The book examines critically a few important concepts of Nyaya-Vaišesika system of Indian Philosophy. The contents that are given in this book are very much useful for the person who wants to have a brief knowledge of at few important topics of Nyaya Vaisesika system particularly one who is new to these systems. Because this book gives an accurate exposition of Nyaya Vaisesika system and the things that are discussed here are somehow interconnected in some way or other. Further, the development of a particular school cannot be understood properly without constant reference to other schools in which it finds a mention. The present work, therefore, mentions few criticisms from other schools of philosophy while dealing with the concerned topics.

Rajen Lakra is a research scholar at Benares Hindu University and about to complete his PhD. Besides, he holds a degree of BTh from the University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum), Rome. He is also teaching Philosophy at Gyandhara Dominican Institute of Philosophy, Goa and St. Charles Seminary, Nagpur as a visiting faculty member. He has presented approximately twenty papers on philosophy at various conferences in India.

The aim of this present work is to provide a clear, and critical account of a few concepts, as has been discussed in Nyaya-Vaisesika system of Indian philosophy. Though there are many key concepts in Nyllya-Vaiśesika system I have chosen a few to deal with. All the things that are discussed here are somehow interconnected in some way or other. With a deep sense of gratitude, I wish to thank my supervisor Prof. Sachchidananda Mishra for his constant assistance with comments that greatly improved the text. I would also like to show my gratitude to Prof. A. K. Chatterjee for sharing his pearls of wisdom with me every now and then. Although any errors are my own and should not tarnish the reputations of these esteemed persons. I thank my colleagues Asst. Prof. Praveen D'Souza, Asst. Prof. Gautam Singh, Asst. Prof. Om Shankar Dubey, Asst. Prof. Aditya Kumar Singh, Asst. Prof. Puja Kumari and fellow researchers Jyotsana Chaturvedi, Deepa Verma, Minakshi Chaturvedi, Sweta Kumari, Lobsang Thapka, Nyanthar, Jyoti Kumari and Debasis Sarangi who provided insight and encouragement that greatly assisted in this work. I am also immensely grateful to the Dominican Fathers and benefactors for their esteemed support. Finally, I thank the publishers of Anusilana which had published the topic abhāva as an article earlier.

Mr Rajen Lakra has been one of my sincere students since he started his studies. It gives me immense pleasure that he has come with a good introductory book on Nyaya Vaiseṣika. This book introduces the basic Nyaya ideas in a beautiful style and in very easy language. This is the special feature of this book. This is not a book for the scholars who have or willing to have a deep understanding of Nyaya and Vaisesika philosophies, for they will not be able to find much food for their thought. Rather this book aims at providing the key concepts of Nyaya and Vaiśeşika to the general students of philosophy in general and the students of Indian philosophy in particular in order to ignite and stimulate their minds. Sure enough, the author is successful in desing it. The primary reader will not get disappointed. This is really a challenge to introduce the philosophy and concepts of Nyaya to an ordinary reader in an easy language and I must congratulate Mr Rajen Lakra for his sincere efforts. In this book he has chosen only a few concepts to elaborate but the concepts he has chosen to explore are worth considering. He has taken some of the basic ideas to ponder over. In the beginning he takes the aspects of Padarthas in Vaiseşika system. Then he moves on to the very notion of self, manas, the concept of liberation, cognition and so on. His ideas are clear and they are put forth in a systematic manner. Without going into the lengthy details, he takes only the key concepts to explore. However, he has not confined himself to this limit. He embarked to some novel ideas too. It can be seen in the analysis of the concept of liberation, the concept of indeterminate perception and the theory of numbers. However, at some places it seems that the concepts should have been analysed more deeply and systematically. Explaining the concept of liberation, he remarkably chalked out the difference between Nyaya and Advaita Vedanta positions. In the same way he has rightly made the differences clear regarding the nature of perception in Nyaya and in Buddhism. Some places he concludes completely disapproving the Nyaya position. As in the case of numbers he reaches at the conclusion that all the numbers are mental constructs. This type of conclusions would pave the path to the idealism and the castle of Nyaya realism would get destroyed. I would suggest that such conclusions should be reached only after a detailed and deep analysis. But in spite of his limitations what he has done deserves recognition. I do hope that in the future he will definitely come with some more serious works.

Philosophy is generally considered to be merely speculative, but this is not true in Indian context. Indian philosophy is speculative, but it has both the theoretical and practical aspects. Philosophy in India has been named, 'darśana', which means "vision", "insight', 'intuition', etc. and thus the word itself signifies its different nature. The etymological meaning of the word philosophy is 'love of wisdom. It signifies a natural and necessary urge in human beings to know themselves and the world in which they live and move and have their being.

It is a well-known fact that the origin of darsana in India is almost forgotten, we do not possess any chronological account as to when the great sages and yogis began to dream of philosophy. In the absence of such a record we can only depend upon hypothesis helped by anumana of sesavat, where the cause is inferred from the effect. Thus, we know that the earliest form of systematized thought is represented by the sutras of the different philosophical systems which gradually developed one after another. This itself presupposes a stage when there was no systematization of these thoughts, which is quite evident from the study of the pre-Upanisadic literature and the Upanisads. There we do not see any systematic arrangements of the ideas. Perhaps, there was no need of systematization at that time. However, later on due to intellectual degeneration or some other inevitable causes, ideas were assimilated in certain cases by different schools and formed the background of distinct lines of thinking in subsequent ages. As time went on such lines of thinking multiplied in number and began to develop. However, the history of the origin and development of Indian Philosophy can be traced in the Vedas. Further, Upanisads are regarded as the fountainhead of all systems of Indian Philosophy.

**Contents and Sample Pages**