292 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [June, 1910. 



undeniable that a genius like Gotama would have easily per- 

 ceived the incongruity, nay the childish nature, of such a chap- 

 ter in a book which dealt with the true theory of the syllogism. 

 The neo-logicians saw this clearly, and Gotama would have 

 seen it, if he had known what the vyapti is. 



The word sadhya, in neo-logic, means the major term 

 read in connotation. In the nyaya-sutras , it appears not to 

 have yet acquired that technical sense. Thus the thesis or 

 probandum (pratijna) is defined as " the statement of the 

 sadhya" 1 . Here the word sadhya means simply "that which 

 is to be proved ' ' . Gangega in his Tattvacintamani criticizes 

 this definition of the thesis as too wide, for according to him it 

 is equally applicable to the major term. Says he — 



This is a very good example of the want of the historical 

 sense in the neo-logicians. Gange$a fancied that the word 

 sadhya bore the same limited technical meaning in Gotama' $ 

 time as in his. Again in Nyaya Sutras I, 1. 38, the word sad- 

 hya is used for the minor term. It is well known how the 

 greatest thinker of the tol in the nineteenth century had momen- 

 tarily misinterpreted this aphorism by taking sadhya to mean 

 the major term, like his great predecessor, Gangega. 



The word paksa, in neo-logic, means the minor term. 

 Gotama uses it in a different sense. Anumeya seems to have 

 been an older term for paksa, though these two are not per- 

 fectly identical in meaning. (Vide Pracastapada Bhdsya,ip. 200, 

 and Yoga Bhasya I. 7, and Nyayabindu, p. 104.) 



Thus the terms vyapti, sadhya, and paksa had not ac- 

 quired their present technical meanings in Gotama" 's time. 

 These, together with the hetu, are the most important terms in 

 the doctrine of the syllogism, and yet Gotama did not know 

 these or anything equivalent to them. Does not this raise a 

 pre-supposition against Gotama 1 s knowledge of the vyapti ? In 

 fact, sciences do not spring, full-grown, into existence from the 

 heads of their founders. The Nyaya-sutras contain some of 

 the earliest efforts of humanity to formulate a doctrine of 

 anumdna, and as such, it is not at all surprising that the doc- 

 trine of vyapti is absent therein. In the sutras of Gotama and 

 Kanada^ we notice the beginnings of deductive logic, which 

 afterwards developed into the doctrine of vyapti. 



Kanada gives the significant name laingika {lit. derived 

 from a mark, nota) to inferential knowledge. But he too seems 

 to have been unaware of the true nature of deduction. He 

 enumerates five marks which lead to deduction — 



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