Life
Udayana was a Nyaya–Vaisheshika philosopher of roughly the tenth and eleventh centuries, associated with Mithila. His surviving works place him in sustained debate with Buddhist accounts of momentariness and non-self, as well as with objections to a creator. A detailed account of his personal life is less secure than the record of these arguments.
Contribution
He defends an enduring self partly through questions about memory, recognition and the unity of experience. His arguments for God ask what accounts for an ordered world and other features of cognition and action. These are philosophical inferences within a realist system, not simply appeals to devotional conviction.
Key works
- Ātmatattvaviveka
- A defence of the reality of the self against competing explanations.
- Nyāyakusumāñjali
- A sequence of arguments concerning the existence of God.
- Kiraṇāvalī
- A commentary contributing to the Vaisheshika analysis of reality.
Legacy
Udayana helped consolidate the interaction of Nyaya and Vaisheshika and prepared problems inherited by later Navya-Nyaya. The strongest way to read him is to identify the explanatory gap each argument claims to fill, then ask whether a rival account can fill it. His importance does not depend on treating the conclusions as beyond criticism.
Does continuity in memory require an enduring subject, or can it be explained by a sequence of connected events?
Sources
- Reference
Gaṅgeśa — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (opens in a new tab)
plato.stanford.edu
- Reference
- Original textSanskrit transliteration
Gautama: Nyāyasūtra (opens in a new tab)
GRETIL · Göttingen State and University Library
How to read itSansknet transcription; the repository warns it is not proofread. Start at 1.1.1–10 and 1.1.32–39; check disputed readings against a print edition.
- University guideEnglish
Nyāya–Vaiśeṣika — IGNOU teaching unit (opens in a new tab)
IGNOU · public university, India
How to read itAn introductory teaching unit on knowledge, causation, categories and liberation. Read its historical attributions alongside the more cautious dates in the biographies.