Dialectical Thought in Ancient India

Abstract

When we study Indian teachings on logic, we have customarily confined ourselves to the study of its formal logic, i.e., Nyaya (zheng li, or the rectification of reason) and Hetu-vidya (yin ming, or the enlightenment of cause). We have seldom dealt with India's dialectical thought and its mode of logic. In fact, India's dialectical logical thought is even more ancient than its formal logic; it was produced before the emergence of Buddhism in the sixth century B.C. By the time of Buddhism, Indian dialectical thinking had already come to possess a rather complete theory and form, or as Engels put it in the essay "Natural Dialectics," it had already reached a higher stage of development. This relatively highly developed mode of dialectical thought in ancient India was a multilayered or multilevel mode of logic-this is its unique characteristic. In this essay I propose to suggest a few exploratory viewpoints concerning the origin and the major developmental stage-i.e., the Buddhistic phase-of this multilevel I...