Bimal Krishna Matilal

Bimal Krishna Matilal (1 June 1935 – 8 June 1991) was an eminent philosopher whose writings presented the Indian philosophical tradition as a comprehensive system of logic incorporating most issues addressed by themes in Western philosophy. Born in Calcutta, he lived and worked in Calcutta, Harvard, Toronto and Oxford. From 1977 to 1991, he served as the Spalding Professor of Eastern Religion and Ethics at the University of Oxford. Literate in Sanskrit from an early age, Matilal was also drawn towards Mathematics and Logic. He was trained in the traditional Indian philosophical system by leading scholars of the Sanskrit College, where he himself was a teacher from 1957 to 1962. He was taught by scholars like Pandit Tāranatha Tarkatīrtha and Kālipada Tarkācārya. He also interacted with pandit Ananta Kumar Nyāyatarkatārtha, Madhusūdana Nyāyācārya and Viāvabandhu Tarkatīrtha. He was awarded the *upādhi* (degree) of Tarkatīrtha (Master of Logic) in 1962. While teaching at the Sanskrit College (an affiliated college of the University of Calcutta) between 1957 and 1962, Matilal came in contact with Daniel Ingalls, an Indologist at Harvard University, who encouraged him to join the PhD program there. Matilal secured a Fulbright fellowship and completed his PhD under Ingalls on the Navya-Nyāya doctrine of negation, between 1962 and 1965. During this period, he also studied with Willard Van Orman Quine. Subsequently, he was professor of Sanskrit at the University of Toronto, and in 1977 he was elected Spalding Professor at Oxford, succeeding Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Robert Charles Zaehner. Matilal died of cancer on 8 June 1991. In his work, he presented Indian logic, particularly Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, Mīmāṃsā and Buddhist philosophy, as being relevant in modern philosophical discourse. Matilal presented Indian philosophical thought more as a constructive program than a mere exposition. This helped create a vibrant revival of interest in India's philosophical traditions as a relevant source of ideas rather than a dead discipline. He was also the founding editor of the *Journal of Indian Philosophy*.