Books dealing with individual philosophers as well as annotated
translations of their works are very much in need in the field of
classical Indian philos- ophy. Hence the research efforts of modern
scholars should increasingly be devoted to this objective. Professor M.
Tachikawa has selected a very short elementary treatise of Udayana as
well as some portions of a larger work of the same author to supplement
the first. His aim is to present to us, in Udayana's own term, how he
(Udayana) sees the Nyaya-VaiSe ika system in a synoptic fashion. I wish
to take this opportunity to say a few things about Udayana and the
Nyaya-Vaise ika system. UDAYANA Udayana was a pre-eminent philosopher
and an astute logician of the eleventh- twelfth century India. He
belonged to the Mithila region of the present Bihar 1 state. In the
history of the Nyaya-V aise a, he holds a very crucial position. In
fact, two different schools of philosophy, Nyaya and Vaise a, belonging
to ancient India, merged into one in the writings of Udayana. As it has
been said, in Udayana, the happy marriage between Nyaya and Vaise ika
was com- plete - the Vai§e ika ontological scheme (padiirthas or system
of categories) was in this way combined with the pramiir: za doctrine
(logic and a theory of knowledge) of Nyaya to produce what later came to
be designated as Navya- nyaya.