Bimal Krishna Matilal (1 June 1935 – 8 June 1991) was an eminent

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

whose writings presented the Indian philosophical tradition as a comprehensive system of logic incorporating most issues addressed by themes in Western

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

. Born in Calcutta, he lived and worked in Calcutta, Harvard, Toronto and Oxford. From 1977 to 1991, he served as the Spalding Professor of Eastern Religion and Ethics at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

Education

Literate in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

from an early age, Matilal was also drawn towards

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

and

Logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

. He was trained in the traditional Indian philosophical system by leading scholars of the Sanskrit College, where he himself was a teacher from 1957 to 1962. He was taught by scholars like pandit Taranath Tarkatirtha and Kalipada Tarkacharya. He also interacted with pandit Ananta Kumar Nyayatarkatirtha, Madhusudan Nyayacharya and Visvabandhu Tarkatirtha. He was awarded the ''upadhi'' (degree) of Tarkatirtha (master of Logic) in 1962. While teaching at the Sanskrit College (an affiliated college of the

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (), is a Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Kolkata, Calcutta (Kolkata), West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate c ...

) between 1957 and 1962, Matilal came in contact with Daniel Ingalls, an Indologist at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, who encouraged him to join the PhD program there. Matilal secured a Fulbright fellowship and completed his PhD under Ingalls on the Navya-Nyāya doctrine of

negation In logic, negation, also called the logical not or logical complement, is an operation (mathematics), operation that takes a Proposition (mathematics), proposition P to another proposition "not P", written \neg P, \mathord P, P^\prime or \over ...

, between 1962 and 1965. During this period, he also studied with

Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine ( ; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century" ...

. Subsequently, he was professor of Sanskrit at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

, and in 1977 he was elected Spalding Professor at Oxford, succeeding Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Robert Charles Zaehner.

Death

Matilal died of cancer on 8 June 1991.

Awards

* Padma Bhushan 1990

Works by Matilal

In his work, he presented Indian logic, particularly Nyāya- Vaiśeṣika,

Mīmāṃsā ''Mīmāṁsā'' (Sanskrit: मीमांसा; IAST: Mīmāṃsā) is a Sanskrit word that means "reflection" or "critical investigation" and thus refers to a tradition of contemplation which reflected on the meanings of certain Vedic tex ...

and

Buddhist philosophy Buddhist philosophy is the ancient Indian Indian philosophy, philosophical system that developed within the religio-philosophical tradition of Buddhism. It comprises all the Philosophy, philosophical investigations and Buddhist logico-episte ...

, as being relevant in modern philosophical discourse. Matilal presented Indian Philosophical thought more as a synthesis rather than a mere exposition. This helped create a vibrant revival of interest in Indian philosophical tradition as a relevant source of ideas rather than a dead discipline. He was also the founding editor of the '' Journal of Indian Philosophy''.

Books

* * * *''Logical and Ethical Issues: An essay on the Indian Philosophy of Religion'', Calcutta University 1982 (repr. Chronicle Books, Delhi 2004) *''Navya Nyâya Doctrine of Negation'', Harvard Oriental Series 46, 1968 * * *''Niti, Yukti o Dharma'', (in Bengali), Ananda Publishers Calcutta 1988. See also th
entries in Worldcat

References

External links

was organized in Jadavpur University in January 2007. {{DEFAULTSORT:Matilal, Bimal Krishna 1935 births 1991 deaths Indian Sanskrit scholars Sanskrit grammarians University of Calcutta alumni Harvard University alumni Academic staff of the University of Calcutta Indian logicians Epistemologists Spalding Professors of Eastern Religion and Ethics Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in literature & education Indian non-fiction writers Indian male non-fiction writers Indian educators Indian editors Indian magazine editors 20th-century Indian non-fiction writers 20th-century Indian writers 20th-century Indian male writers 20th-century Indian philosophers 20th-century Indian educators 20th-century Indian scholars People from Jaynagar Majilpur People from South 24 Parganas district West Bengal academics Scholars from West Bengal Indian emigrants to the United Kingdom British Sanskrit scholars British logicians 20th-century British philosophers Indian scholars of ancient philosophy