ABSTRACT
Gautama (about 400 BC). 1 was the founder of the logical tradition in India. It may be that there were others who developed logic earlier, for we come across words denoting logic in much earlier literature. But he seems to have been the first to have systematized logic and insisted that thinking and all argumentation should proceed according to well-fixed logical forms, and avoid all fallacies. Salvation is the primary aim of man, but we should know that it is a reality, not a false hope. We should, therefore, know the nature of reality as it is. But we should know also how we can know and what it is that we can know. Hence logic and epistemology were as important as metaphysics to Gautama, who must have developed his system of philosophy in order to check false, fallacious and sentimental debates, controversies, and dialectic, each involving many a false philosophy of life. Gautama lived about two hundred years after Buddha and Mahāvīra, the founders of Buddhism and Jainism, who attacked the orthodox Vedic philosophies simply from the side of logic and experience and completely denied the validity of scriptural authority. One may surmise, therefore, that Gautama developed his logic to counter these two philosophies on their own grounds, namely, logic and experience. The controversies between the Nyāya and Buddhism in particular are keen. And in reaction to the Nyāya, the followers of Jainism and Buddhism also competed in developing logic. The influence of Gautama, so far as logic and epistemology go, is very great and salutary on both the orthodox and heterodox systems. In fact, the Nyāya was regarded as an essential subsidiary to the Veda even by many orthodox people.
