Gautama (Akṣapāda)
150 BCE
author of the Nyāya-sūtra; commonly c. 2nd c. BCE (estimates span 6th c. BCE–2nd c. CE, with later interpolations), disputed
Akṣapāda Gautama is credited with the Nyāya-sūtra, the root text of Nyāya, the Indian school of logic, epistemology and the theory of debate. It enumerates the valid means of knowledge (perception, inference, comparison, testimony) and a detailed apparatus of reasoning and disputation that shaped philosophical method across traditions. The text shows clear signs of later interpolation, and Gautama's date is highly uncertain — estimates range from the 6th c. BCE to the 2nd c. CE, with the core often placed around the 2nd c. BCE. His biography is unknown; 'Akṣapāda' ('eyes-on-feet') is itself an epithet of disputed meaning.
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Gautama (Akṣapāda)’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
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