Gotama
The Nyāya Sūtras (Sanskrit: न्यायसूत्र) is an ancient Indian Sanskrit text composed by Akṣapāda Gautama and the foundational text of the Nyaya school of Hindu philosophy. The date when the text was composed is unknown, but variously estimated between 6th century BCE and 2nd century CE. The biography of its author is unknown, and the text may have been composed by more than one author over a period of time. The text consists of five books, with two chapters in each book, with a cumulative total of 528 aphoristic sutras about rules of reason, logic, epistemology and metaphysics.
The Nyāya Sūtras is a Hindu text, notable for focusing on knowledge and logic, and making no mention of Vedic rituals. The first book is structured as a general introduction and table of contents of sixteen categories of knowledge. Book two is about pramana (epistemology), book three is about prameya (the objects of knowledge), and the remaining books discuss the nature of knowledge. It set the foundation for the Nyaya tradition of the empirical theory of validity and truth, opposing uncritical appeals to intuition or scriptural authority.
The Nyāya Sūtras cover a wide range of topics, including Tarka-Vidyā, the science of debate, or Vāda-Vidyā, the science of discussion. The Nyāya Sutras are related to but extend the Vaiśeṣika epistemological and metaphysical system. Later commentaries expanded, expounded, and discussed the Nyaya sutras. The earliest surviving commentaries are the Nyāyabhāṣya of Pakṣilasvāmin Vātsyāyana (5th–6th century CE), the Nyāyavārttika of Uddyotakāra (6th–7th century CE), Vācaspati Miśra's Tātparyatīkā (9th century CE), Udayana's Tātparyapariśuddhi (10th century CE), and Jayanta's Nyāyamañjarī (10th century CE).
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