Gādādhari Volume-1

In these two volumes, Gadādhara Bhattācārya offers a detailed analysis of the views found in Tattvacintāmaṇi of Gaṅgeśa and in Dīdhiti of Raghunātha Śiromaṇi. Almost all the major conclusions of Navya-Nyāya have been explained with great defence.

मुक्तिबादबिचारः (Muktivādavicaraḥ)

This book is an essay on Nyāya theory of liberation. Harirāma Tarkavāgīśa, in this book, critically assesses the generally accepted definition of liberation as permanent (ātyantika) cessation (nivṛtti) of suffering (duhkha). The debate revolves around explaining the terms like ‘atyanta’ and ‘nivṛtti’. Harirama argues that the widely accepted understanding of these words fails to cover all the different kinds of liberation that philosophers talk about. Harirama proposes to describe liberation as the destruction of final suffering and the idea of finality could be understood as a universal inhering in suffering. Harirama argues that if knowledge of reality is to be regarded as the cause of liberation, then liberation is to be regarded as the permanent post-negation of sin and not of misery.

शब्दशक्तिप्रकाशिका (Śabdaśaktiprakāśikā (Vol-2))

In the second volume of Śabdaśaktiprakāśikā, Jagadīśa presents a detailed analysis of Prabhākara’s kāryānvitaśaktivāda and refutes this view. Jagadīśa defends the niravacchinna śaktivāda of the words like ākāśa etc. The view of Raghuntha Siromani with regard to the causal nexus of linguistic understanding has been refuted. Jagadisa offers an analysis of the nature of paribhāṣika śabda and argues that proper names given to individuals do not have śakti and they are to be treated as paribhāśaika śabda. Jagadīśa defends the view that śakti resides in all the three loci: the individual, the universal and the relation of samavāya that holds between an individual and the universal. Jagadīśa also refutes the Mīmāṃsaka view that the sentence has lakṣaṇā and the view of Ālaṃkārika regarding the vyāñjanā relation has been rejected. In this book, Jagadīśa offers a detailed analysis of different kinds of lakṣaṇā and in this context, one comes across a criticism of the Prabhākara thesis that the word having lakṣaṇā is not the cause of syntactic knowledge of the sentence. This book ends with an analysis of the nature of yogaruḍa śabda.

Gadādhara’s Theory of Objectivity Viṣayatāvāda (Part-Two)

In this book, Sibajiban Bhattacharyya offers a detailed analysis of the text called Viṣayatāvāda, written by Gadādhara. After explaining the traditional Navya-Nyāya theory of objectivity, the author presents the later Navya-Nyāya theory of objecthood where it has been argued that objecthood cannot be cognition itself. Gadādhara’s theory of relation has been analyzed in terms of objecthood of qualified cognition. A detailed analysis of the ideas of qualificandness, qualificandumness, predicatehood could be found in this book.

নদিয়ার সংস্কৃতি চর্চা (Nadiyar Samskriti Carca)

The present book contains several essays on the history of Nadia. Some of the essays focus on the history and archaeological importance of Nadia. Some other essays focus on the cultural activities in Navadvipa. There are some other essays that describe the literacy and library in Nadia. Folk theaters (jātrā) and modern theaters in Nadia have also been talked about in some essays.

प्रामाण्यवाद: (Prāmāṇyavādaḥ)

In this book, Harirama Tarkavagisa critically assesses the Mīmāṃśa theory of self-luminosity of knowledge. According to Prabhākara, the knower, the object of knowledge and the knowledge itself are apprehended in one go. The Bhaṭṭa Mīmāṃsakas hold that knowledge is inferred through a property called knownness. Murāri Miśra, another Mīmāṃsaka philosopher, holds that knowledge is known in a subsequent knowledge called introspection. Harirāma, following the footsteps of Gaṅgeśa, argues that since sometimes doubt regarding the validity of knowledge arises in the third moment after the origin of knowledge, the validity of the knowledge is apprehended by something other than the totality of the causal conditions of that knowledge. Harirama further argues that there is something wrong with the thesis that knowledge is self-luminious.