Gotama (गोतम) (c. 2nd–3rd century) (also spelt Gautama; गौतम) was an Indian philosopher and logician who wrote the Nyāya Sutras, considered to be the foundation of the Nyāya school of philosophy.

Gotama's precise dates are uncertain. In the past he has been assigned to various times between the sixth and third centuries BCE, though modern scholarship places him between the second and third centuries CE. His name has occasionally led him to be confused with Gautama Buddha. He is sometimes given the honorific titles "Akşapāda" ("eye-footed") and "Dirghatapas" ("long-penance"). He is also sometimes accorded the religious titles "Rishi" or "Maharshi".

In the Nyāya Sutras Gotama developed and extended the Vaiśeşika epistemological and metaphysical system through 528 aphorisms. Later commentaries expanded, expounded, and critically discussed Gotama's work, the first being by Vātsyāyana (c.450–500 CE), followed by the Nyāyavārttika of Uddyotakāra (c. 6th–7th century), Vācaspati Miśra's Tātparyatīkā (9th century), Udayana's Tātparyapariśuddhi (10th century), and Jayanta's Nyāyamañjarī (10th century). These not only discussed Gotama's thought, but also that of his successors.

Sources and reading

• Sue Hamilton, Indian Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2001) ISBN 0-19-285374-0
• B.K. Matilal, Epistemology, Logic, and Grammar in Indian Philosophical Analysis (Oxford University Press, 2005) ISBN 0-19-566658-5
• J.N. Mohanty, Classical Indian Philosophy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000) ISBN 0-8476-8933-6

• Nyaya Philosophy — from Banglapedia

Hindu philosophers | Indian philosophers | Indian logicians | Hindu religious figures

Akshapada Gotama