Lecture | VVIK Lecture
Book presentation Victor A. van Bijlert: Nyāya Sūtra: On Philosophical Method: Sanskrit Text, Translation, and Commentary
- Victor A. van Bijlert
- Date
- Wednesday 18 September 2024
- Time
- Address
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 1.48 (The lecture will be followed by drinks in the LIAS common room (first floor) of the Herta Mohr Building)
Abstract
In this lecture Victor van Bijlert will discuss his findings regarding the Nyāya Sūtra and the way this basic text of the Nyāya school of thought used older sources. The main thesis of the book is that the Nyāya Sūtra was not a somewhat rambling handbook on epistemology and logic fused with a lot of so-called polemics against other schools. Rather, he regards the text as a consistent treatise whose primary interest was to base metaphysics and soteriology on philosophical debate informed by empiricism and rationality.
About the speaker
Victor van Bijlert (1955) studied Indology at Leiden University, with a PhD on Buddhist epistemology and logic in 1987. He taught at Leiden University and Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. From 2007-2021 he was lecturer for Indian religions and Sanskrit at the Faculty of Religion and Theology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Since 2021 he is retired. He is the author of Vedantic Hinduism in Colonial Bengal (Routledge, 2021). For a list of publications, please see here.