For millennia, humanity has asked: What is the ultimate ground of reality? In a groundbreaking new work, The Logic of Ish, author Dr. Mrittunjoy Guha Majumdar resurrects one of history’s most rigorous attempts to answer this question—not through faith, but through logic. The book centres on the Nyāya tradition of ancient Bharat, a school of thought that, centuries before the European enlightenment, built a formidable system of logic and epistemology to investigate the nature of reality, knowledge, and the divine. The Logic of Ish traces this intellectual journey, culminating in the masterwork of Udayanācārya, whose Nyāyakusumāñjali presents a compelling rational case for Īśvara—an intelligent ground of existence.

But this is not merely a historical study. The book’s pivotal innovation is its daring dialogue between classical argument and contemporary thought. Published by the standard bearers of Indology today – Motilal Banarsidass, the book takes the classical arguments of Nyāya towards an engagement with frontier questions of science and mathematics. The title itself embodies this synthesis: “Ish” refers simultaneously to Īśvara and to Intelligent System Heuristics, a modern framework for understanding order in complex systems. This dual lens transforms an ancient debate into an urgent contemporary inquiry: Is the profound intelligibility of our universe—from quantum laws to cosmological constants—itself evidence of a foundational, ordering intelligence? “The Nyāya philosophers were the original rationalists,” notes Dr Guha Majumdar, “They refused to appeal to mystery or mysticism. Instead, they asked: What must be true for the world of cause, effect, consciousness, and moral accountability to be possible? Their conclusions offer a startlingly relevant model for today, where science reveals a cosmos steeped in mathematical beauty and informational structure.”

The Logic of Ish meticulously unpacks Udayanācārya’s arguments, from the need for a conscious coordinator of atomic combinations to the moral basis for a just cosmos. It then stages a profound conversation with 21st-century perspectives in the philosophy of science, information theory, and systemic biology. The result is a fresh, interdisciplinary examination of perennial questions: Can inference reveal what lies beyond perception? What constitutes valid evidence for a first cause? Where are the limits of rational inquiry? Rigorous and yet accessible, the book is written for both specialists and intellectually curious readers. It serves as both a definitive introduction to a major non-Western philosophical tradition and a provocative contribution to global philosophy and science-and-metaphysics discourse. And to top it off, it has a foreword by Prof. Jeffery D. Long, one of the most renowned Indologists in the world today.

The Logic of Ish is now available in hardcover and paperback formats through Motilal Banarsidass.