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Dignāga
Dignāga (a.k.a. ''Diṅnāga'', c. 480 – c. 540 CE) was an Indian Buddhist scholar and one of the Buddhist founders of Indian logic (''hetu vidyā''). Dignāga's work laid the groundwork for the development of deductive logic in India and created the first system of Buddhist logic and epistemology (Pramana). According to Georges B. Dreyfus, his philosophical school brought about an Indian "epistemological turn" and became the "standard formulation of Buddhist logic and epistemology in India and Tibet." Dignāga's thought influenced later Buddhist philosophers like Dharmakirti and also Hindu thinkers of the Nyaya school. Dignāga's epistemology accepted only "perception" ( ''pratyaksa'') and "inference" ('' anumāṇa'') as valid instruments of knowledge and introduced the widely influential theory of "exclusion" (''apoha'') to explain linguistic meaning. His work on language, inferential reasoning and perception were also widely influential among later Indian philosophers ...
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Buddhist Logic
Buddhist logico-epistemology is a term used in Western scholarship for ''pramāṇa-vāda'' (doctrine of proof) and ''Hetu-vidya'' (science of causes). Pramāṇa-vāda is an epistemological study of the nature of knowledge; Hetu-vidya is a system of logic. These models developed in India during the 5th through 7th centuries. The early Buddhist texts show that the historical Buddha was familiar with certain rules of reasoning used for debating purposes and made use of these against his opponents. He also seems to have held certain ideas about epistemology and reasoning, though he did not put forth a logico-epistemological system. The structure of debating rules and processes can be seen in the early Theravada text the Kathāvatthu. The first Buddhist thinker to discuss logical and epistemic issues systematically was Vasubandhu in his ''Vāda-vidhi'' ("A Method for Argumentation"), who was influenced by the Hindu work on reasoning, the '' Nyāya-sūtra''.Anacker, Stefan (2005, rev ...
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Dharmakirti
Dharmakīrti (fl. c. 6th or 7th century; Tibetan: ཆོས་ཀྱི་གྲགས་པ་; Wylie: ''chos kyi grags pa''), was an influential Indian Buddhist philosopher who worked at Nālandā.Tom Tillemans (2011)Dharmakirti Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy He was one of the key scholars of epistemology (pramāṇa) in Buddhist philosophy, and is associated with the Yogācāra and Sautrāntika schools. He was also one of the primary theorists of Buddhist atomism. His works influenced the scholars of Mīmāṃsā, Nyaya and Shaivism schools of Hindu philosophy as well as scholars of Jainism. Dharmakīrti's '' Pramāṇavārttika'', his largest and most important work, was very influential in India and Tibet as a central text on pramana ('valid knowledge instruments') and was widely commented on by various Indian and Tibetan scholars. His texts remain part of studies in the monasteries of Tibetan Buddhism. History Little is known for certain about the life of Dha ...
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Pramāṇa-samuccaya
The ''Pramāṇa-samuccaya'' () is a philosophical treatise by Dignāga, an Indian Buddhist logician and epistemologist who lived from c. 480 to c. 540 . The work comprises an outline in the highly elliptical verse format typical of early Indian philosophical texts, and an explanatory auto-commentary. Content ;Chapter 1 :The treatise begins with Dignāga's assertion that there are only two means of knowledge: direct perception and inference. Corresponding to these, there are two objects: particulars and universals.Direct perception is knowledge which excludes conceptual thought (''kalpanā''). This only reveals the bare features of an object via the senses. This knowledge is inexpressible in words, relating to real objects and ultimate reality. Errors of perception arise through misinterpretations by conceptual thought. Each item of sense perception is unique. Dignāga does not specify what the nature of the object of perception is, but implies that although it is not atomic or ...
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Anumāṇa
''Pramana'' (Sanskrit: प्रमाण, ) literally means "proof" and "means of knowledge".pramANa
Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Koeln University, Germany
James Lochtefeld, "Pramana" in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Vol. 2: N-Z, Rosen Publishing. , pages 520-521 In Indian philosophies, pramana are the means which can lead to knowledge, and serve as one of the core concepts in Indian . It has been one of the key, much debated fields of study in Hinduism,

Pramana
''Pramana'' (Sanskrit: प्रमाण, ) literally means "proof" and "means of knowledge".pramANa
Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Koeln University, Germany
James Lochtefeld, "Pramana" in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Vol. 2: N-Z, Rosen Publishing. , pages 520-521 In Indian philosophies, pramana are the means which can lead to knowledge, and serve as one of the core concepts in Indian . It has been one of the key, much debated fields of study in Hinduism,

Richard Hayes (professor)
Richard Hayes (aka Dharmacārī Dayāmati) (born 1945) is an Emeritus professor of Buddhist philosophy at the University of New Mexico. He received his Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indian studies from the University of Toronto in 1982. Hayes moved to Canada in 1967 in order to avoid being drafted for the Vietnam War. Hayes is a noted scholar in the field of Buddhist Sanskrit, specializing in the study of Dharmakīrti and Dignāga. Hayes was formerly Associate Professor of religious studies at McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University ... in Canada. He joined the University of New Mexico in the fall of 2003 and retired in 2013. Hayes was co-founder, moderator and a prolific contributor to the online discussion group Buddha-L. Buddha-L attracted a mix of scholars ...
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Indian Logic
The development of Indian logic dates back to the ''anviksiki'' of Medhatithi Gautama (c. 6th century BCE); the Sanskrit grammar rules of Pāṇini (c. 5th century BCE); the Vaisheshika school's analysis of atomism (c. 6th century BCE to 2nd century BCE); the analysis of inference by Gotama (c. 6th century BC to 2nd century CE), founder of the Nyaya school of Hindu philosophy; and the tetralemma of Nagarjuna (c. 2nd century CE). Indian logic stands as one of the three original traditions of logic, alongside the Greek and the Chinese logic. The Indian tradition continued to develop through early to modern times, in the form of the Navya-Nyāya school of logic. Origins The Nasadiya Sukta of the ''Rigveda'' ( RV 10.129) contains ontological speculation in terms of various logical divisions that were later recast formally as the four circles of '' catuskoti'': "A", "not A", "A and 'not A'", and "not A and not not A". Medhatithi Gautama (c. 6th century BCE) founded the ''anviksik ...
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Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gradually spread throughout much of Asia via the Silk Road. It is the world's fourth-largest religion, with over 520 million followers (Buddhists) who comprise seven percent of the global population. The Buddha taught the Middle Way, a path of spiritual development that avoids both extreme asceticism and hedonism. It aims at liberation from clinging and craving to things which are impermanent (), incapable of satisfying ('), and without a lasting essence (), ending the cycle of death and rebirth (). A summary of this path is expressed in the Noble Eightfold Path, a training of the mind with observance of Buddhist ethics and meditation. Other widely observed practices include: monasticism; " taking refuge" in the Buddha, the , and the ; an ...
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Nyaya
( Sanskrit: न्याय, ''nyā-yá''), literally meaning "justice", "rules", "method" or "judgment",Nyaya: Indian Philosophy
Encyclopædia Britannica (2014)
is one of the six '' astika'' schools of . This school's most significant contributions to Indian philosophy were systematic development of the theory of logic, methodology, and its treatises on epistemology.

Hetucakra
''Hetucakra'' or ''Wheel of Reasons'' is a Sanskrit text on logic written by Dignaga (c 480–540 CE). It concerns the application of his 'three modes’ ( trairūpya), conditions or aspects of the middle term called ''hetu'' ("reason" for a conclusion) or ''linga'' ("mark", "sign" of a sound argument) in a valid inference within the Indian logico-epistemic tradition, sometimes referred to as Buddhist logic. Anacker's assessment Anacker (2005: p. 34), in introducing his English rendering of the "Method for Argumentation (Vāda-vidhi)" of Vasubandhu (fl. 4th century)—a text composed in Sanskrit which is now only extant in a reconstructed composite extracted from Tibetan works, collated by Frauwallner (1957)—holds that: Vasubandhu's criteria for a valid inference-schema are concise and precise, and there is nothing essential omitted. Dignāga's 'wheel of justifications' (''hetu-cakra''), sometimes held to be the first complete Indian formulation of what constitutes the v ...
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Indian Philosophy
Indian philosophy refers to philosophical traditions of the Indian subcontinent. A traditional Hindu classification divides āstika and nāstika schools of philosophy, depending on one of three alternate criteria: whether it believes the Vedas as a valid source of knowledge; whether the school believes in the premises of Brahman and Atman; and whether the school believes in afterlife and Devas. There are six major schools of Vedic philosophy—Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā and Vedanta, and five major heterodox (sramanic) schools—Jain, Buddhist, Ajivika, Ajñana, and Charvaka. However, there are other methods of classification; Vidyaranya for instance identifies sixteen schools of Indian philosophy by including those that belong to the Śaiva and Raseśvara traditions.Cowell and Gough, p. xii.Nicholson, pp. 158-162. The main schools of Indian philosophy were formalised and recognised chiefly between 500 BCE and the late centuries of the Common Era. Co ...
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Universal (metaphysics)
In metaphysics, a universal is what particular things have in common, namely characteristics or qualities. In other words, universals are repeatable or recurrent entities that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things. For example, suppose there are two chairs in a room, each of which is green. These two chairs both share the quality of " chairness", as well as greenness or the quality of being green; in other words, they share a "universal". There are three major kinds of qualities or characteristics: types or kinds (e.g. mammal), properties (e.g. short, strong), and relations (e.g. father of, next to). These are all different types of universals. Paradigmatically, universals are '' abstract'' (e.g. humanity), whereas particulars are ''concrete'' (e.g. the personhood of Socrates). However, universals are not necessarily abstract and particulars are not necessarily concrete. For example, one might hold that numbers are particular yet abstract objects. Like ...
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