Double Negation in Navya-Nyāya

Abstract

Professor Daniel Ingalls published his Materials for the Study of Navya- Nyāya Logic in 1951. The publication of this pioneering work has been, directly or indirectly, responsible for a number of interesting developments in the study of Indian philosophy. Let me mention only two of them here. First, a wide and active interest in the study and evaluation of Indian logic has been visible, since this publication, among the scholarly circles of Europe and America. Second, and this is more significant, modern students of philosophy in India (and by them I mean the English-knowing students and academics), to whom Navya-nyāya was practically a sealed text-book before, have begun to realize consciously the need to study and analyze Navya-nyāya adequately. All these are matters of common knowledge. I have, however, a very special and personal reason to mention the above book of Professor Ingalls — a reason which I shall take the liberty of describing here briefly.