The Kusumanjali (Old and Rare Book)

THE following treatise is very celebrated amongst Hindu logicians, and, however little it may be calculated to interest the general English reader, it will certainly not be without a use and interest to those Europeans whose studies are directed to the higher brandies of Sanskrit literature. They will hardly fail to be attracted by a work which, though obscure and technical, professes to grapple, from a Hindu standing point, with the world-old problem, how the existence of the Supreme Being is to be proved; and perhaps thorn who are interested in the history of philosophy may turn over s. no e;. the pages with Curiosity, especially when they occasionally recognise old familiar arguments and objections in their quaint Oriental disguise. The Kusumanjali is as much inferior to the tenth book of Plato's Laws or the twelfth of Aristotle's Metaphysics, as Hindu philosophy itself is to that of Greece but nothing can rob India of the merit of an original system of logic aud metaphysics, unborrowed from any other land. It has been said that the past history of philosophy is the record of glorious failures in the attempt to solve an insuperable problem ; and it cannot be uninteresting to trace tin' brave efforts of a Hindu thinker, far away from the circle cf. Christianity, who, perplexed by -the doubts or open disbelief taught in many of the systems-current in his day, endeavoured, however vainly, to build for his country-men the first truth of Theology on a firm logical foundation.

Dr. Hall, in his valuable 'Index to the Bibliography of the Hindu philosophical systems,' (p. 20,) has endeavoured to identify Udayana with Uddyotakara, (whom he places not later than the seventh century, ) but this is untenable, as will be proved, I think, in the sequel.

The first point to settle is the order of the series of ancient Nyaya works, the mitres of Gotama and Kannada having been explained and annotated by a triple [or rather quadruple] set of commentaries. The order which I venture to propose is as follows,

I.-The original Sutras or Aphorisms ascribed to the Rishi Gotama or Akshapada.

II.-The Nyaya-bhashya,-a commentary to No. 1. by Pakshila Swamin, sometimes called Vitsyayana.

III.-The Nyaya-vartika,-a commentary on No. II. by Uddyotakara Acharya. I procured lately, from a pandit of Nuddes, a fragment of this work containing ,a portion of the first book.§ IV.-The .Nyciya-vdrtika-tcitparya-1114-a commentary on No. III. by Vachaspati Mis'ra. V.-The Nyaya vdrtika-tatparya-paris'uddhi-a commentary on No. IV. by Udayana Acharya. My reasons for this arrangement are the following.

**Contents and Sample Pages**