Vol. I, No. 10.] An Hxamination of the Nyaya-Sitras. 245 
[NV.S. ] 
34. An Examination of the Nyaya-Sitras.—By Haraprasip SAsiet. 
Anyone who carefully reads the Nyaya Sutras will perceive 
that they are not the work of one man, of one age, of the pro- 
fessors of one science, or even of the professors of one system of 
religion. It would seem apparent that at different ages philoso- 
phers, logicians and divines have interpolated various sections into 
an already-existing work on what we may, for the want of a better 
term, call Logic. 
Tt is evident that such a book would be full of contradictions, 
inconsistencies and irreconcilable passages. So the Nyaya Sutras 
are. The Hindu Commentators from Vatsayana, in the third 
century A.D. to Radhamohan Gosvami in the nineteenth, have 
attempted to evolve a harmonious system of Logic and Philosophy 
from the Sutras. The task is an impossible one, and so every 
one of them has failed, and that miserably. They have imported 
later and more modern ideas into the commentaries, but without 
success. The acute logicians of Bengal thought it was a diffi- 
eult work; and they had recourse to various shifts to explain the 
Bhasya and other commentaries, They have changed some 
passages and imported extraordinary meanings into others. 
But unfortunately the idea of studying the Sutras by them- 
selves did not occur to any one of them. Ninety-nine per cent. of 
the manuscripts of this work are accompanied with some comment- 
ary or other. Manuscripts giving the Sitras only are extremely 
rare. I got one from Midnapore, and gave a copy of it to my 
friend Dr. Venis, and it was published at Benares. It is known as 
the Nyayastitroddhara. My friend Pandit Vindhyesvariprasada 
Duve got one at Benares, and he published it in the Bibliotheca 
Indica as an appendix to his edition of the Nyayavartika. This“ 
is known as Nydyasacinibandha. But from what I know of the 
habits of pandits, lam sure nobody has studied the Sitras by 
themselves. They have been used only as works of reference. 
I took up the Nyayasucinibandha for independent study. 
On comparing the Sitras as given there with Sitras in editions 
accompanied by commentaries, and also with the Nyaéyasttrod- 
dhara, I was struck with the variety of readings which the Nyaya. 
Siitras presented. A number of Sitras are regarded as spurious, 
The readings of a large number of Stitras are irreconcilably 
different in different editions. This is not the case with the 
Vedanta Sitras, and with the Mimimsa Sitras, in which various: 
readings are extremely rare, almost non-existent, and interpolated’ 
Siitras there are none. I am not speaking” of the Samkhya and: 
Yoga Sitras, which are comparatively modern. The: difficul ty? 
which I feel in regard to the Nyaya Stitras was also felt about a! 
thousand years ago, when Vacaspatimisra, who flourished about’ 
the end of the tenth century, twice attempted to fix the number’ 
of Sutras and their readings, namely, in Nyayasitroddhara, and 
in Nyayasicinibandha, both of which go by:his name. If both) 
are the works of one man, as they | profess to ‘be, it is apparent 
that the author did not feel sure of his ground. 
