Date of Udhayana

[nanda chandran]

This is regarding the date of Udhayana, the logician of the NyAya school.
I'm interested in knowing the factors which led to the current dating of
Udhayana, which places him after Shankara.

One curious thing is that Udhayana in his famous work KusumAnjali gives
classical arguments in favor of a creator God. The Buddhists, the Jainas,
the SAmkhyas and the MImAmsakas have all come out with very strong arguments
against a creator God. The early NaiyAyikas and the Vaishesikas who battled
them for a long, but don't seem to have overcome the opposition. And if we
look at all the VedAnta AchAryas - Shankara, RAmAnuja, Madhva, NimbArka,
Vallabha - all these philosophers do not seek to prove the existence of God
on logical grounds.
They seek refuge in the scripture - the shruti - to prove his existence.

So given that the God and "no God" argument had been going on for quite a
while and KumArilla Bhatta himself who came before Shankara had argued so
forcefully against the concept of a creator God and Shankara himself having
given up trying to prove the existence of God on logical grounds which but
reflects the theologicians position (that a creator God cannot be logically
proven) in the chronology of Indian philosophy, isn't it strange that
UdhayAna, if he came after Shankara would try to prove the existence of god
on logical grounds?

And in the MAdhaviya Shankara Dig Vijaya itself, doesn't Shankara debate
with a Udhayana? Why is he not the same as the Udhayana in question?

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