Uddyotakara

 

Uddyotakara was a Nyaya philosopher coming after Dignaga. His exact dates cannot be known but we know that while he was aware of Dignaga’s views he is unaware of Dharmakirti just like Kumarila. Thus his date falls between the two. Poet Subandhu author of the famous work Vasavadatta refers to him as someone who has defended Nyaya from Buddhist scholars. Conjecture is he lived in 6th Century C.E.

He is the author of Nyaya-Vartikka, a commentary on Nyaya Bhashya of Vatsyayana, which itself is a commentary on Nyaya Sutras. This work has been translated into English by Ganganath Jha. He says his intention is writing the commentary is to refute Buddhist logicians and in the work he is more concerned about polemics than exposition. Most of his arguments are sophistical and do not really affect Buddhist philosophers who quite easily exposed the sophistry. His work lacks sincerity and thoroughness of a Kumarila whose critique of Buddhist philosophy undoubtedly was the first strong response from the Realist camp to Idealist philosophy. Vacaspati Mishra who wrote a commentary on Nyaya Varttika testifies this in a way by saying that he is rescuing the work of Uddyotakara from obscurity which it had fallen in through centuries. However some of his more lasting contributions to Indian logic are mentioned below.

1. He divided inference into three kinds: Kevala Anvayin (Only Positive Inference) in which hetu (probans) and sadhya (probandum) are co-present in every locus and thus co-extensive. For e.g. everything that is nameable is knowable. The second is Kevala Vyatireka (Only Negative Inference) in which there is no Sapaksha. To understand this consider the inference wherever there is smoke there is fire; for e.g. in the kitchen - kitchen here is the sapaksha, the known instance of the co-presence of hetu and sadhya and lake here is the vipaksha the known instance of co-absence of hetu and sadhya. In an inference like ‘this has earthness because it has smell’ there is no sapaksha for smell is a defining feature of earth and thus cannot be found in anything else. Similarly Kevala Anvayin is an inference that has no Vipaksha. A definition is taken to be an implicit only negative inference. The Anvayan Vyatirekin inference is one that has both sapaksha and vipaksha. This became a standard method of classification of inference in Indian Logic.

2. This classification is considered an improvement over Dignaga because he only considers the anvaya vyatirekin type on inference. This classification allows Uddyotakara to classify fallacious hetu better. A sound hetu has the following characteristics and its absence leads to a fallacy:

a) Hetu exists in Paksha

b) Either sapaksha or vipaksha must exist and if sapaksha exists then hetu exists in sapaksha.

c) If vipaksha exists hetu does not exist in vipaksha.

This neat classification of Uddyotakara shares a problem with Dignaga’s that Dharmakirti would point out - why does the presence of the hetu in sapaksha not guarantee its absence in vipaksha so that we should be able to assert the contra-positive immediately: If P then Q Therefore Not-Q then Not-P. This renders the absence in Vipaksha clause redundant. As Dharmakirti sees it the relation between hetu and sadhya is a necessary one.

3. Uddyotakara was the first to give the list of six types of sense-object contact list that became standard later in Nyaya. He was also the one to introduce the fallacy of anyathasiddha. A hetu is anyathasiddha when the existence of hetu is capable of being explained without reference to Sadhya. For e.g. Shadow is a substance because it moves. Uddyotakara says that the movement of a shadow can be explained without the necessity to assume that shadow is a substance. Anyathasiddha was classified as a vyabhicharin hetu (deviating or straying probans i.e. one where hetu is found in a locus of absence of sadhya).

4. Kevala Vyatirekin inference opened the way for many ways to prove the existence of the Self in Nyaya and was used for that purpose even by Udayana. Uddyotakara began the trend to use such an inference to prove the existence of the soul. For e.g. consider the inference: Every living body has a Self because it has breath unlike in a pot.

Here Sadhya is Self, Paksha (where the presence of Sadhya is to be proved) is every living body and Hetu is breath. Pot is the Vipaksha and there is no Sapaksha.

However the problem with Kevala Vyatirekin inference is that it seems to commit the fallacy called Asadharana Hetu. A Hetu is asadharana if found only in a Paksha and not in any sapaksha or Vipaksha. For e.g.:

Sound is eternal because it has soundness.

Eternity is the Sadhya and Soundness the Hetu. The hetu here is absent from eternal things - the sapaksha and non-eternal things - the Vipaksha. This creates a doubt whether the hetu proves the probandum or its negation since it is absent from locus of both.

Gangesha in his Tattvachintamani is able to distinguish between genuine only-negative inference and those that commit the Asadharana fallacy but it restricts the scope of the only-negative inference considerably.