Archeologists and Sanskrit scholars have unearthed a rare 12th-century palm-leaf manuscript titled 'Yukti-Tarangini' in a small village near Ujjain. The text, written in an early form of Devanagari, focuses on the Pratyaksha (perception) and Anupalabdhi (non-perception) frameworks of the Nyaya school. This discovery is significant as it fills a critical gap in the development of medieval Indian logic, specifically regarding the formal proof of absence.
The manuscript appears to be a polemic against rival logicians of the era, offering a detailed defense of the Vedic metaphysical view of permanent substances. Dr. Arvind Joshi, the lead researcher, noted that the text contains previously unknown debating strategies that emphasize the ethics of logical inquiry over mere victory in a Vada (debate). This find is expected to trigger a major re-evaluation of the 'Navya-Nyaya' transition period in Central India.