of philosophy consisting of a number of half-sentences or sutras is attributed to Gautama, also called Ak@sapada.  The earliest commentary on these sutras, called the Vatsyayana bha@sya, was written by Vatsyayana.  This work was sharply criticized by the Buddhist Di@nnaga, and to answer these criticisms Udyotakara wrote a commentary on this commentary called the Bha@syavattika [Footnote ref 1].  As time went on the original force of this work was lost, and it failed to maintain the old dignity of the school.  At this Vacaspati Mis’ra wrote a commentary called Varttika-tatparya@tika on this second commentary, where he tried to refute all objections against the Nyaya system made by other rival schools and particularly by the Buddhists.  This commentary, called Nyaya-tatparya@tika, had another commentary called Nyaya-tatparya@tika-paris’uddhi written by the great Udayana.  This commentary had another commentary called Nyaya-nibandha-prakas’a written by Varddhamana the son of the illustrious Ga@nges’a.  This again had another commentary called Varddha-manendu upon it by Padmanabha Mis’ra, and this again had another named Nyaya-tatparyama@n@dana by S’a@nkara Mis’ra.  The names of Vatsyayana, Vacaspati, and Udayana are indeed very great, but even they contented themselves by writing commentaries on commentaries, and did not try to formulate any

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[Footnote 1:  I have preferred to spell Di@nnaga after Vacaspati’s Tatparyatika (p.  I) and not Dignnaga as it is generally spelt.]

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original system.  Even S’a@nkara, probably the greatest man of India after Buddha, spent his life in writing commentaries on the Brahma-sutras, the Upani@sads, and the Bhagavadgita.

As a system passed on it had to meet unexpected opponents and troublesome criticisms for which it was not in the least prepared.  Its adherents had therefore to use all their ingenuity and subtlety in support of their own positions, and to discover the defects of the rival schools that attacked them.  A system as it was originally formulated in the sutras had probably but few problems to solve, but as it fought its way in the teeth of opposition of other schools, it had to offer consistent opinions on other problems in which the original views were more or less involved but to which no attention had been given before.

The contributions of the successive commentators served to make each system more and more complete in all its parts, and stronger and stronger to enable it to hold its own successfully against the opposition and attacks of the rival schools.  A system in the sutras is weak and shapeless as a newborn babe, but if we take it along with its developments down to the beginning of the seventeenth century it appears as a fully developed man strong and harmonious in all its limbs.  It is therefore not possible to