Buddhist Logic

Buddhist logic has its place in the history of Buddhism in India, and it has also its place in the general history of Indian logic and philosophy. In the broad field of Indian logic it constitutes an intermediate Buddhist period, while in the domain of Buddhist philosophy logic constitutes a remarkable feature of the third, concluding phase of Indian Buddhism. Under Buddhist Logic we understand a system of logic and epistemology created in India in the VI-VIIth century A. D. by two great lustres of Buddhist science, the Masters Dignāga and Dharmakirti. The very insufficiently known Buddhist logical literature which prepared their creation and the enormous literature of commentaries which followed it in all northern Buddhist countries must be referred to the same class of writings. It contains, first of all, a doctrine on the forms of syllogism and for that reason alone deserves the name of logic. A theory on the essence of judgment on the import of names and on inference is a natural corollary of the theory of syllogism just as it is in India in Europe.