On the Historical Development of the Concept of Inferential Upādhi

Abstract

It does seem certain, as prior research has suggested, that upādhi was given the role of “under-cutter” in the Navya-nyāya theory of inference, and that the word “additional/associate condition,” which may lead us to misunderstanding, should be avoided in translations of the word, at least in the reading of Navya-nyāya texts. However, this is not the case for its early concept. In Vācaspati’s Tātparyaṭīkā, we can find this early concept of upādhi, which was developed through discussions between Naiyāyikas and Buddhist logicians on the ascertainment of causal relationship. At this historical stage, upādhi had a meaning of an “associate factor necessary for the occurrence of x’s existence from y” rather than an “undercutting condition for the occurrence of inferential knowledge of x from y.” Only in later texts, such as Udayana’s Pariśuddhi and Gaṅgeśa’s Tattvacintāmaṇi, do we find indications that the word went through a historical process to eventually abandon this former aspect.