Akṣapāda Gautama
Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia is now 14 years old
Our Encyclopedia recently received a wonderful opportunity for a major renewal on its 14th birthday . After many years of growing our Encyclopedia had become bit slow and sometimes even decided not to answer when people knocked on the door.
A very big thank you and blessings to Dmytro Rudiy (rudiy.nl) for his great work in upgrading the server, website and all of the infrastructure and helping make TBE fast and reliable again for everyone!
We kindly ask our readers to help us cover the cost of this important upgrade and also help with the ongoing costs of keeping the Encyclopedia alive and freely available.
or card![]()
Every little donation helps and every one is deeply appreciated. 🙏🙏🙏
OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM 🙏🙏🙏
May blessings shower down on all of yous 🙏🙏🙏

Akṣapāda Gautama (Gotama; c. 2nd century CE); Author of the Nyāya Sūtras (major source of the Vaiśeṣika epistemological and metaphysical system).
Akṣapāda is said to be the name of Gautama, the reputed author of the Nyāya Sūtras. and trhe word is believed to mean “having his eye fixed in abstraction on his feet” [MWD. p,
3]. But it is really composed of “Akṣa” and “pāda”, and the former means “an organ of sense, sensual perception” [MWD. p. 3], and “pāda” means “a foot” [MWD. p. 611].
“Akṣapāda” means, therefore, “rooted in the senses of knowledge or perception.”
Hence the system of Nyāya is called Akṣapāda system.
- Indian philosophy: The logical period
The logical period of Indian thought began with the Kushan dynasty (1st–2nd centuries ce).
Gautama (author of the Nyaya-sutras; probably flourished at the beginning of the Christian era) and his 5th-century commentator Vatsyayana established the foundations of the Nyaya as a school almost exclusively preoccupied with logical and epistemological issues.
- The Madhyamika...
Indian philosophy: The Nyaya-sutras
The Nyaya-sutras probably were composed by Gautama or Akshapada about the 2nd century bce, though there is ample evidence that many sutras were subsequently interpolated.