Hindu Logic as Preserved in China and Japan Volume 4 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 edition. Excerpt: ... PART I. HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF HINDU LOGIC. Chapter I. Development Of Logic In India. 2. akyds Date.--In curious contrast to the ancient Hindu's love of subtle subdivision stands his failure to appreciate the value of dates. Chronological obscurity1 in the records of Hindu literature, religion and philosophy is the greatest obstacle that lies in the way of our present investigation, and whatever traces there may have been of an historical development in the Hindu originals, these are completely lost in the Chinese and Japanese translations. Hence we can get no pure history of the Hindu people and their civilization from these sources. We must rest content with a few myths which the Chinese and Japanese monks have handed down from Hindu tradition and have embodied in their work. Yet I do not regard it as entirely hopeless to arrive at some approximation to the few dates necessary to this sketch. The comparison of events in China with those in India will assist us, for it is certain that the records of Chinese culture are quite ancient, even though we do not take seriously the date 2500 B. C, sometimes mentioned, as marking a period at which they were in possession of mathematics, astronomy, a calendar and a chronology. Every event of Buddhist literature is referred to the date of Cakya's entrance into Nirvana, just as Christian chronology is referred to the year of the Incarnation. It is therefore important that we should first of all obtain some idea of the date either of the birth or of the death of Cakya. To do this with exactness is difficult or perhaps impossible; there are almost as many dates proposed as there are authori "Sohsiryak, 1:1 complains of this also. ties that refer to the period of Cakya's birth. One...