UDAYANACARYA

flourished 10th century, , near Darbhanga, modern Bihar state, India Hindu logician who attempted to reconcile the views held by the two major schools of logic out of which developed the Navya Nyaya (New Nyaya) school of right reasoning, which is still recognized and followed in some regions of India. Of the two schools, the old Nyaya system was concerned with the critical examination of the objects of knowledge by means of logical proof, while the earlier Vaisesika system dealt with particularsobjects that can be thought of and named. Udayanacarya assumed, with the Vaisesika, that the world was formed by atoms, from which physical bodies also derived. But he was equally concerned with the mind and its right apprehension of objects in nature. His vigorous thinking was set forth in the Kusumajali and the Bauddhadhikkara, the latter an attack on the atheistic thesis of Buddhism. Living in a period of lively controversy with the Buddhists, Udayanacarya defended his belief in a personal God by resorting to the two natures of the world: cause and effect. The presence of the world is an effect that cannot be explained by the activity of atoms alone. A supreme being had to cause the effect and regulate the activity of the atoms; hence, according to Udayanacarya, God exists.