ABSTRACT
Despite large and obvious differences, the history of Indian Logic runs curiously parallel with that of the Logic of Europe, at least in its classical and medieval periods; so much so that one is tempted to see the two as advancing side by side, rather than separately. So far as the classical period is concerned we may, in fact, have tended to underestimate the extent of the contact between India and Greece; for though no one now maintains, as some historians have argued,1 that Indian Logic was directly inspired by Aristotle, or even that influences in either direction can be definitely traced, it is known that there was considerable commerce between the two regions. Aristotle's most famous pupil Alexander had, after all, penetrated to India in the course of his military ventures, though it is doubtful that he found time to lecture the inhabitants on Logic. There were subsequently Greek settlements on the north-west frontier, and it would be surprising if there were not some interpenetration of ideas. Later, with the rise of Mohammedanism, these ties were broken, and India and Europe were held apart by a civilization largely hostile to both. The Arabs, it is true, helped to preserve the European tradition to some extent by taking over Aristotle's works in translation; but they did not themselves discover the Indian Logic and, in fact, the Moslem invasion of India nearly caused its extinction. Many of our modern Sanskrit texts are re-translations from versions that survived in Tibet. We can also study such doctrines as went with Buddhism to China.
