About the Book
This edition of Gadadhara's Visayatavada (in two parts-published separately) contains the original Sanskrit text, its English translation and commentary by Professor Sibajiban Bhattacharyya. Gadadhara's style is very complicated, using, as he does, the latest techniques of Navya-Nyaya, In his efforts to guide the reader through this difficult text Professor Bhattacharyya provides a useful introduction and explanatory notes.
PART ONE presents a general introduction to Navya-Nyaya concepts, while PART TWO carries the text, closely followed by the English translation and explanation.
About the Author
Professor Sibajiban Bhattacharyya taught philosophy for more than forty years in different universities in India and abroad. He has published papers in journals, anthologies, encyclopaedias, both Indian and foreign. He has also published books and edited books and journals of philosophy for some time. Bhattacharyya was General President of the Indian Philosophical Congress in 1989. He is at present Visiting Professor of Philosophy in the University of Burdwan, West Bengal.
Preface
This work contains an English translation of Vtsayatauvda of Gadadhara Bhattacaryya, the last great Navya-Nyaya philosopher who flourished in the late seventeenth century. His style, being fully developed, is complicated, using the latest technique of Navya-Nyaya. Because of the very complicated conceptual structure of Navya-Nyaya thinking, no work of Gadadhara has so far been translated in any Indian or European language. There is, however, a long tradition of translation of Navya-Nyaya texts, in English, French, German-the languages which I read-and perhaps in other European languages. Saileswar Sen, Daniel H.H. Ingalls, Kuppuswami Sastri, Bimal Krishna Matilal, J.N. Mohanty, Goekoop, Karl Potter and others in English; A. Foucher and Kamaleswar Bhattacharyya in French; Erich Frauwallner and his school in German have developed a technical language! in which Navya-Nyaya texts can be translated. Although this technical language of translation is not intelligible to general readers without adequate understanding of the Navya-Nyaya concepts, still with explanations and introductory essays explaining the Navya-Nyaya concepts and techniques of expressions, a sort of intelligibility might be achieved. It is this hope which has prompted me to undertake the present translation, although with what success it is for scholars to judge.
In translating and explaining the text I have derived the greatest help from Pandit Madhusudana Nyayacarya whose sudden death on August 26, 1985, deprived me of help in the final stages of writing this book. My general understanding of Navya-Nyaya concepts, as expressed in the Part One of this book, is due entirely to him, although he is in no way responsible for my errors. Pandit Visvabandhu Tarkatirtha was kind enough to explain a number of pages of difficult text with his characteristic insight and clarity. I only hope that I have been able to incorporate his explanations fully and correctly; without his help the work would have been far worse than it is.
My thanks are due to Professor Heramba Nath Chatterjee, formerly Principal, Government Sanskrit College, Calcutta, who provided me with all facilities for consulting books and manuscripts in the College Library, for editing the text. I have followed the text of Visayatavada edited by Dhundiraja Satri (Chowkhamba, 1940), (cited by me as A); correcting it by the following two manuscripts in the Government Sanskrit College Library:
Subject Nyaya
(1) Cat No. 388, script Bengali, incomplete, 10 pages (cited as B).
(2) Cat No. 2625, script Bengali, incomplete, 8 pages (cited as C).
The text incorporated in Vada-Varidhi edited by Dhundiraja (Chowkhamba, 1933) is exactly the same as A. Two other earlier editions (6617 and 6619 in Karl H. Potter's Encyclopedia, VoI. I, 1983) were not available to me.
I must thank the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi, for full financial support for preparation of the manuscript.
Contents
xi
I.
Introduction
3
II.
Nature of Objectivity: Traditional
6
III.
The Theory of the Later Navya-Nyaya Philosophers
12
IV.
Arguments for the New Theory: Objecthood Cannot be Cognition Itself
V.
Objecthood Cannot Be Identified with the Object
23
VI.
Objecthood Identified with Both Cognition and Object
35
VII.
Rejection of the Theory
43
VIII.
Infinite Regress of Relations and its Solution
44
IX.
Congnitionhood of Objecthood
47
X.
Difference of Objecthood
48
XI.
Qualificandum-Ness and Qualifier-Ness as Distinct Objecthood
50
XII.
Only Qualificandumness is Objecthood of Qualified Cognition
59
XIII.
Gadadhara’s Theory
67
XIV.
Gadadhara’s Theory: Relations have objecthood of Qualified Cognitions
78
XV.
Relations are not Objects of Qualified Cognitions
XVI.
Relation-Ness and Qualifiersness Etc.
125
XVII.
Two Kind of Modeness
133
XVIII.
Kinds of Qualificandumness
140
XIX.
Variation of Qualificandumness
148
XX.
158
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