The Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya of Śrīharṣa: An English Translation, Volume II

This second volume comprises Chapters II–IV of the Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya. Chapter II opens with a critique of the twenty-two Nyāya nigrahasthānas, beginning with pratijñāhāni, or abandonment of a proposition, and pratijñāntara, or shifting the original thesis. Śrīharṣa tests each definition through detailed semantic and logical analysis, demonstrating the difficulty of distinguishing legitimate clarification from dialectical defeat. The discussion expands into questions concerning assertion, qualification, negation, temporal and spatial identity, class concepts, and the relation between a definition and its instances. Chapters III and IV continue Śrīharṣa’s examination of the principal categories employed by realist philosophers, focusing on the possibility of valid definition and the coherence of distinctions involving cognition, objects, universals, difference, absence, and relations. Throughout the work, the author employs reductio arguments and internal criticism rather than relying solely on independent Vedāntic premises. The volume concludes the sustained philosophical project begun in Volume I and includes a separate index for Volume II.