Editing Nyaya (section)

==Development==
{{quote box|title =Nasadiya Sukta|quote=Then was not non-existent nor existent:<br />
there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.<br />
What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter?<br />
Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?<br />
...<br />
Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it? <br/>
Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? <br/>
The gods came after this world's production,<br/>Who knows then whence it first came into being?"|qalign=left|source =[[Rigveda|Rig Veda]], ''Creation....10:129–1, 10:129–6'' <ref name="Christian2011">{{cite book|author=David Christian|title=Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7RdVmDjwTtQC&pg=PA18|date=1 September 2011|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-95067-2|pages=18–}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Kenneth Kramer|title=World Scriptures: An Introduction to Comparative Religions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RzUAu-43W5oC&pg=PA34|date=January 1986|publisher=Paulist Press|isbn=978-0-8091-2781-8|pages=34 ff}}</ref>}}
The historical development of Nyāya school is unclear, although ''[[Nasadiya sukta|Nasadiya]]'' hymns of Book 10 Chapter 129 of [[Rigveda]] recite its spiritual questions in logical propositions.<ref name="Christian2011" /> In early centuries BCE, states [[Francis Xavier Clooney|Clooney]], the early Nyāya scholars began compiling the science of rational, coherent inquiry and pursuit of knowledge.<ref name="fxc">Francis X. Clooney (2010), Hindu God, Christian God: How Reason Helps Break Down the Boundaries, Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|978-0-19-973872-4}}, pages 18–19, 35–39</ref>

=== Foundational Text ===
Aksapada Gautama composed the ''Nyāya Sūtras'' (by 2nd century CE), a foundational text for Nyāya, that primarily discusses logic, methodology and epistemology.<ref name="bkmxiv" /> Gautama is also known as Aksapada and Dirghatapas.<ref>Padmapurana Uttarakhanda, Chapter 263</ref> The names Gotama and Gautama points to the family to which he belonged while the names Aksapada and Dirghatapas refer respectively to his meditative habit and practice of long penance.<ref name="978-81-7110-629-5" /> The people of Mithila (modern Darbhanga in North Bihar) ascribe the foundation of Nyāya philosophy to [[Gautama Maharishi|Gautama]], husband of [[Ahalya]], and point out as the place of his birth a village named [[Gautam Ashram|Gautamasthana]] where a fair is held every year on the 9th day of the lunar month of [[Chaitra]] (March–April). It is situated 28 miles north-east of [[Darbhanga]].<ref name="978-81-7110-629-5" />

=== Commentarial Tradition ===
Concepts in the foundational text, the Nyaya Sutras, were clarified through a tradition of commentaries. Commentaries were also a means to defend the philosophy from misinterpretations by scholars of other traditions.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Picascia |first=Rosanna |date=2023-04-18 |title=Our epistemic dependence on others: Nyāya and Buddhist accounts of testimony as a source of knowledge |url=https://academic.oup.com/jhs/article-abstract/17/1/62/7128281?redirectedFrom=fulltext |journal=Journal of Hindu Studies |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=63 |doi=10.1093/jhs/hiad003 |issn=1756-4263}}</ref>

The Nyāya scholars that followed refined, expanded, and applied the ''Nyaya Sutras'' to spiritual questions. While the early Nyaya scholars published little to no analysis on whether supernatural power or God exists, they did apply their insights into reason and reliable means to knowledge to the questions of nature of existence, spirituality, happiness and [[moksha]]. Later Nyāya scholars, such as [[Udayana]], examined various arguments on theism and attempted to prove existence of God.<ref name="csharma" /> Other Nyāya scholars offered arguments to disprove the existence of God.<ref name="fxc" /><ref>G. Jha (1919), ''Original atheism of the Nyaya, in Indian Thought – Proceedings and Transactions of the First Oriental Congress'', Vol ii, pages 281–285</ref><ref>Dale Riepe (1979), ''Indian Philosophy Since Independence'', Volume 1, BR Grüner Netherlands, {{ISBN|978-90-6032-113-3}}, page 38</ref>

The most important contribution made by the Nyāya school to Hindu thought has been its treatises on [[epistemology]] and [[system of logic]] that, subsequently, has been adopted by the majority of the other Indian schools.<ref name=olil>Oliver Leaman (2006), Nyaya, in ''Encyclopaedia of Asian Philosophy'', Routledge, {{ISBN|978-0-415-86253-0}}, pages 405–407</ref>