logic in vedas

Subhash kak points out :In the West, Aristotle (384-322 BCE) is generally credited with the formalization of the tradition of logic and also with the development of early physics. In India, the Rigveda itself in the hymn 10.129 suggests the beginnings of the representation of reality in terms of various logical divisions that were later represented formally as the four circles of catuskot.i: “A”, “not A”, “A and not A”, and “not A and not not A” [5].Causality as the basis of change was enshrined in the early philosophical system of the Samkhya. According to Pur¯anic accounts, Medh¯atithi Gautama and Aks.
ap¯ada Gautama (or Gotama), which are perhaps two variant names for the same author of the early formal text on Indian logic, belonged to about 550 BCE.
The Greek and the Indian traditions seem to provide the earliest formal
representations of logic, and in this article we ask if they influenced each
other. We are also interested in the scope of early logic, since this gives
an idea to us of the way early thinkers thought about nature and change.
Thomas McEvilley’s The Shape of Ancient Thought does an excellent comparative analysis of Greek and Indian philosophy , stressing how there existed much interaction between the two cultural areas in very early times, but he argued that they evolved independently.
Some scholars believe that the five part syllogism of Indian logic was
derived from the three-part Aristotelian logic. On the other hand, there is
an old tradition preserved by the Greeks and the Persians which presents
the opposite view. According to it, Alexander was the intermediary who
brought Indian logic to the Greeks and it was under this influence that the
later Greek tradition emerged.Tark sastra is the science of dialectics; ... These are the sixteen parts of the Tarka. The followers of this doctrine judge and affirm
that, as this world is created, there must be a Creator; the mukt, or emancipation,” in their opinion means striving to approach the origin of beings, not uniting like the warp and the web, the threads of which, although near, are nevertheless separate
from each other.
Logic is one of the six classical schools of Indian philosophy. These six schools are the different complementary perspectives on reality, that may be visualized as the views from the windows in the six walls of a cube within which the subject is enclosed. The base is the system of the traditional rites and ceremonies (Purva Mımamsa), and the ceiling is reality that includes the objective world and the subject (Uttara Mımamsa or Vedanta); one side is analysis of linguistic particles (Ny¯aya),with the opposite side being the analysis of material particles (Vaisesika);
another side is enumerative categories in evolution at the cosmic and individual
levels (Samkhya), with the opposite side representing the synthesis of the material and cognitive systems in the experiencing individual (Yoga).Clearly, the use of systematic view of nature had been taken to a very advanced level.
Logic is described in Kautilya’s Artha´shastra (c. 350 BCE) as an independent
field of inquiry anvıksikı . The epic Mahabharata, which is most
likely prior to 500 BCE because it is not aware of Buddhism in its long descriptions
of religion , declares (Mahabharata) that anvıksik¯ı is equivalent to the discipline of tarka. Clearly, there were several equivalent terms in use in India for logic in 500 BCE.The canonical text on the Ny¯aya is the Ny¯aya S¯utra of Aksapada Gautama.
The most important early commentary on this text is the Ny¯aya.The Ny¯aya also calls itself pram¯anas¯astra, or the science of correct knowledge.
Knowing is based on four conditions: (i) The subject or the pramatma
(ii) The object or the prameya to which the process of cognition is directed;
(iii) The cognition or the pramiti; and (iv) the nature of knowledge, or the
praman.
a. The four pram¯an.
as through which correct knowledge is acquired
are: pratyaks.a or direct perception, anum¯ana or inference, upam¯ana or analogy,
and ´sabda or verbal testimony.
The function of definition in the Ny¯aya is to state essential nature (svar¯upa)
that distinguishes the object from others. Three fallacies of definition are described:
ativy¯apti, or the definition being too broad as in defining a cow as a
horned animal; avy¯apti, or too narrow; and asambhava, or impossible.
Gautama mentions that four factors are involved in direct perception:
the senses (indriyas) , their objects (artha), the contact of the senses and the
objects (sannikars.a), and the cognition produced by this contact (j˜n¯ana).
The five sense organs, eye, ear, nose, tongue, and skin have the five elements
light, ether, earth, water, and air as their field, with corresponding qualities
of color, sound, smell, taste and touch.
Manas or mind mediates between the self and the senses. When the
manas is in contact with one sense-organ, it cannot be so with another. It
is therefore said to be atomic in dimension. It is due to the nature of the
mind that our experiences are essentially linear, although quick succession of
impressions may give the appearance of simultaneity.
Objects have qualities which do not have existence of their own. The
color and class associated with an object are secondary to the substance.
According to Gautama, direct perception is inexpressible. Things are not
perceived as bearing a name. The conception of an object on hearing a name.he five parts of the Ny¯aya syllogism spring from the idea of bandhu that is
fundamental to Vedic thought. The bandhu is the equivalence between two
different systems, which ordinarily are the microworld, the macroworld, and
the individual’s cognitive system.
The Ny¯aya syllogism first sets up the propositional system with its two
components (two parts) and then identifies another well known system to
which the first is supposed to have a bandhu-like relationship (third and fourth
parts). The conclusion (fifth part) can be made only after the preliminaries
have been formally defined. As we see, this takes five steps.
The appeal to the bandhu in the syllogism is to acknowledge the agency of
the subject who can be, without such knowledge, open to invalid perception.
One can see how in systems that do not accept transcendental reality (such as
Aristotle’s or Buddhist), a simplification from the five-part to the three-part
syllogism would be most natural.
is not direct perception but verbal cognition.