The last two decades of Indological research have led to a marked increase in the investigation of logic in India, especially in the earliest period of classical India. A panel of senior and junior scholars from America, Asia, and Europe, all specialists working in this area, was concerned at the 12th World Sanskrit Conference, held in Helsinki in the summer of 2003. This volume contains not only their papers, which address both philosophical and philological matters pertaining to logic as propounded in texts from this period, but also an introduction designed to permit non-specialists, whether non-Indologists or non-philosophers, to learn about Indian logic in its infancy.

Brendan S. Gillon is an associate professor at McGill University. In addition to his translation work in collaboration with Richard P. Hayes on key portions of the Svathanumana chapter of Dharmakirti’s Pramanavarttika, a watershed text in the development of logic in India, he is the author of many articles on natural language semantics. He is also the coeditor of Semantics: A Reader, published by oxford University Press (2004).

Petteri Koskikallio and Asko Parpola, secretary general and President, respectively, of the 12th World Sanskrit conference, are Finnish Indologists. Asko Parpola is Professor Emeritus of South Asian and Indo-European studies at the University of Helsinki.