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Thinker · c. 1000–1100 CE

Udayana

Udayana

Udayana developed Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika arguments on inference, causation, selves, and the existence of God, keeping Nyāya in active debate with Buddhist philosophers.

Intellectual setting

Udayana worked in the increasingly integrated Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika tradition and engaged Buddhist accounts of persons, causation, and knowledge.

Key ideas

Theistic inference

His arguments use features of causal order and atomic organization in a Nyāya case for God.

Suppositional reasoning

He catalogued forms of tarka used to test rivals by consequences and regress.

Legacy

His arguments remained reference points for later Nyāya logic, philosophical theology, and Navya-Nyāya technical analysis.