Portion of Sanskrit treatise on Hindu logic and epistemology of the Navya-Nyāya school in Hindu philosophy.

Indian theories of sentence and its meaning with special reference to grammar (Vyākaraṇa), logic (Nyāya), and ritualism (Mīmāṃsā).

Study of Bhāvanaviveka of Maṇḍanamiśra, work on the Purva-mīmāṃsā doctrine of causation.

In the Āgamadambara (“Much Ado about Religion”), Jayanta Bhatta appears to be making a case for religious toleration and pluralism. This paper considers whether Jayanta has a concept like toleration in mind at all, or at least something that we today might understand to be toleration. If he is doing neither, our understanding of the nature of tolerance and its conceptual limits may be furthered by determining exactly what he is talking about and why it looks so (...) much like tolerance. (shrink)

In the Āgamaḍambara (‘Much Ado About Religion’), Bhaṭṭa Jayanta presents an argument for an inclusivist approach to the problem of religious diversity, building upon some of the arguments given in his Nyāyamañjarī. Although his arguments are restricted to consideration of a form of Hinduism particular in time and place, I argue that Jayanta’s solution to the problem of religious diversity has wide-ranging relevance and some applicability to contemporary debates in the philosophy of religion. I consider possible pluralist objections (...) to inclusivism, such as those given by John Hick in An Interpretation of Religion and elsewhere. In response to these objections, I argue that an inclusivism like Jayanta’s addresses all the reasons someone might have for adopting a pluralist position and in fact does so better than the pluralists by remaining within a live religious tradition. (shrink)

This essay seeks to characterize one of the leading ideas in Bhaṭṭa Jayanta's Nyāyamañjarī, the fundamental role that the idea of complexity plays in its theory of knowledge. The appeal to the causally complex nature of any event of valid awareness is framed as a repudiation of the lean ontology and epistemology of the Buddhist theorists working in the tradition of Dharmakīrti; for Jayanta, this theoretical minimalism led inevitably to the inadmissible claim of the irreality of the world (...) outside of consciousness. In countering this Buddhist position, Jayanta adopts some of his opponents’ characteristic terminology, most notably in his use of sāmagrī, “causal complex” itself. He resituates this borrowed vocabulary within a strong appeal to the theory of the kārakas or the semantic roles detailed by grammarians since the time of Pāṇini. Possibly borrowing this sāmagrī-kāraka amalgam from the Buddhist grammarian-epistemologist Jinendrabuddhi, Jayanta uses it as a point of departure for a sustained attack on the views of Dharmottara, who Jayanta understood as offering the most advanced and most problematic Buddhist philosophical position available in his time and place. (shrink)

Commentary, with supercommentary on Brahmasūtra of Bādarāyaṇa, presenting the viewpoint of Śuddhādvaita school in Hindu philosophy.

Classical Sanskrit text on Lokāyata, with English English translation.

Two types of logical consequence are compared: one, with respect to matrix and designated elements and the other with respect to ordering in a suitable algebraic structure. Particular emphasis is laid on algebraic structures in which there is no top-element relative to the ordering. The significance of this special condition is discussed. Sequent calculi for a number of such structures are developed. As a consequence it is re-established that the notion of truth as such, not to speak of tautologies, is (...) inessential in order to define validity of an argument. (shrink)

A new characterization of all the MV-algebras embedded in a CL-algebra has been presented. A new sequent calculus for Lukasiewicz ℵ0-valued logic is introduced. Some links between this calculus and the sequent calculus for multiplicative additive linear logic are established. It has been shown that Lukasiewicz ℵ0-valued logic can be embedded in a suitable extension of MALL.

Commentary on Tantravārttika of Kumārila Bhaṭṭa, work on Mimamsa philosophy.

Ancient India recognized the supreme value of education in human life. The ancient thinkers felt that a healthy society was not possible without educated individuals. They framed an educational scheme carefully and wisely aiming at the harmonious development of the mind and body of students. What they framed was a very liberal, all-round education of a very high standard, calculated to prepare the students for a useful life in enjoying all aspects of life. This is essentially a universally applicable educational (...) framework highlighting the purpose of human life and interconnectedness at all levels of existence as a basis of human values. Insights from ancient Indian educational system are of great help in facilitating the production of a creative, ethical and a learning mind, which will concern itself not only with greater ‘progress’, but primarily or more importantly with the inner transformation of the human consciousness. (shrink)

An attempt has been made in this article to re-examine the inscriptions of Ashoka, an ancient Indian king, who was a great leader, well known in history, who had the courage, confidence, vision and will to provide an administration based purely on genuine human values. As evidenced in his inscriptions, 'effective leadership' depends not on preaching moral values but on practising them, and modifying life and leadership styles accordingly. Ashoka believed that the success of a true leader is directly related (...) to the maintenance of purity in public life and harmony in domestic affairs. (shrink)

A prominent way through which wave-particle duality has been ascribed to photons is by illustrating their “wave-like” behaviour in the Mach-Zehnder interferometer and “particle-like” behaviour in the anti-correlation experiment. This duality has been formulated in two ways. Some have based the claim on the complementarity principle. This formulation, however, has already been shown to be problematic. Others have made a much simpler duality claim by considering that single-photons are analogous to waves and particles in the above experiments. I criticise this (...) formulation by arguing that the analogies cannot be distinctly established. Thus, this duality claim is found to be unsubstantiated. (shrink)

'This book is a masterpiece of theoretical thought. It anticipates the actual achievements of much of what we now call sociolinguistics.

This article is an attempt at understanding the use that Abhinavagupta, the Kashmiri Śaiva philosopher and scholar of poetics, makes of a few concepts and theories stemming from the tradition of Vedic ritual exegesis. Its starting point is the detailed analysis of a key passage in Abhinavagupta’s commentary on the “aphorism on rasa” of the Nāṭyaśāstra, where the learned commentator draws an analogy between the operation of the non-prescriptive portions of the Veda in the ritual and the “generalisation” taking place, (...) according to him, in the appreciation of a work of art. Arguing against the tendency of modern historiography to explain this analogy exclusively in terms of Kumārila’s theory of effectuation in its two modalities, the article endeavours to show how Abhinavagupta relies on a variety of other textual sources he knew extensively and presumably first-hand. Some of them belong to the great Mīmāṃsaka tradition ; others, to different trends of medieval Brahmanism claiming exegetical heritage, as in the case of Jayanta Bhaṭṭa’s Nyāyamañjarī The nature of Abhinavagupta’s debt to Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka and his concept of bhāvanā is also reconsidered in light of these new findings. This investigation finally leads to identify, in the Abhinavabhāratī, an original theory of scriptural narratives and their efficacy, irreducible to any of its exegetical sources. According to this theory, mythological passages of the Veda directly prompt action, through the same capacity of abstraction or “de-temporalisation” that is at work in our appraisal of literature and theatre. (shrink)

Contributed seminar papers presented at Vidvatgoṣṭhī at Melkote.

Philosophical aspects of Rāmāyaṇa, classical Hindu epic by Valmiki; a study.

In this paper, we present a modality-free pre-rough algebra. Łukasiewicz Moisil algebra and Wajsberg algebra are equivalent under a transformation. A similar type of equivalence exists in our proposed definition and standard definition of pre-rough algebra. We obtain a few modality-free algebras weaker than pre-rough algebra. Furthermore, it is also established that modality-free versions for other analogous structures weaker than pre-rough algebra do not exist. Both Hilbert-type axiomatization and sequent calculi for all proposed algebras are presented.

Analytic philosophers have, since the pioneering work of B.K. Matilal, emphasized the contributions of Nyāya philosophers to what contemporary philosophy considers epistemology. More recently, scholarly work demonstrates the relevance of their ideas to argumentation theory, an interdisciplinary area of study drawing on epistemology as well as logic, rhetoric, and linguistics. This paper shows how early Nyāya theorizing about argumentation, from Vātsyāyana to Jayanta Bhaṭṭa, can fruitfully be juxtaposed with the pragma-dialectic approach to argumentation pioneered by Frans van Eemeren. I (...) illustrate the implications of this analysis with a case study from Jayanta Bhaṭṭa’s satirical play, Much Ado about Religion (Āgamaḍambara). (shrink)

Classical commentary on Nyāyasūtra of Gautama, aphoristic work on Nyaya philosophy.

Ocherk 1. Voprosy ontologii -- Ocherk 2. Voprosy ėtiki i ėstetiki -- Ocherk 3. Voprosy gnoseologii i aksiologii.

Political philosophy of E.W. Adikaram, a Sri Lankan philosopher.