Udayana’s defence of Ishvara

What defines it

1. 01

   Five objections to Ishvara, answered in five stabakas

2. 02

   The argument from effect: the world needs a knowing maker

3. 03

   Reasoning as worship: manana after shravana

4. 04

   Atmatattvaviveka against the Buddhist no-self

01The master of Mithila

Udayana lived in Mithila; tradition places his home at Kariyan village near present-day Samastipur in Bihar. His date was long argued over until his Lakshanavali was found to close with a verse dating it to Shaka 906, that is 984–985 CE. He wrote on both Nyaya and Vaisheshika: the Parishuddhi on Vachaspati Mishra’s gloss, the Kiranavali on Prashastapada, the Atmatattvaviveka against the Buddhist denial of the self, and the Nyayakusumanjali. Gangesha, founder of Navya-Nyaya three centuries later, calls him simply “the Acharya”, and the 14th-century Sarvadarshanasangraha praises him as one who had seen the far shore of the ocean of logic.

02Five objections answered

The Nyayakusumanjali has seventy-three verses in five chapters, called stabakas, bunches of flowers, with Udayana’s prose explanation. He begins by naming five reasons people give for denying Ishvara: that there is no unseen means to a world beyond; that rites can work without Ishvara; that there are proofs he does not exist; that even if he existed he would be no source of knowledge; and that no proof establishes him. Each of the first four stabakas answers one, and commentators match them to the Charvakas, Mimamsakas, Buddhists and Jains. The fifth chapter gives the positive case. Udayana says this reasoning is itself an act of worship, the manana that follows hearing the shastra.

03Nine proofs in one verse

The first verse of the fifth stabaka packs the proofs into a single line: from effects, from the first joining of atoms, from the support of the world, from the arts handed down, from the authority of the Veda, from scripture, from sentences, and from number. The best known is the first: the world is an effect, made of parts, and every such effect has an intelligent maker, as a pot has its potter; that maker, who knows the atoms and the karma of every soul, is Ishvara. Buddhist logicians such as Jnanashri answered in turn. Udayana’s arguments became the standard Nyaya theology, studied in every Nyaya pathashala, and Navya-Nyaya grew out of his school in Mithila.

Great masters

In the texts

• Nyayakusumanjali, stabakas 1–5
• Atmatattvaviveka
• Lakshanavali (dated Shaka 906)

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