RBSE VU Nyaya Darshan key terms

One of the six classical Indian philosophical systems that accepts the authority of the Vedas; Nyaya is counted among them alongside Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, and Vedanta.

A valid means of knowledge, i.e. the process or instrument by which a true cognition is produced; Nyaya recognises four: perception, inference, comparison, and verbal testimony.

A valid cognition, one that corresponds to its object and is not later contradicted; distinguished from doubt, error, and memory, which are not treated as prama.

Perception: cognition produced by contact between a sense organ and its object, non-erroneous and free of conceptual misattribution in its primary form; the first and most basic pramana.

Sense-object contact, the causal link Nyaya requires for perception; without it no perceptual cognition of an external object can arise.

Inference: knowledge of a sadhya arising from a hetu known to be invariably related to it, as when smoke on a hill yields knowledge of fire.

Comparison or analogy as a pramana: knowledge of the relation between a word and its referent gained from a stated similarity, classically the recognition of a gayal from a forester's description.

Verbal testimony as a valid means of knowledge: cognition arising from the utterance of a reliable speaker, requiring the sentence to be well formed and the speaker trustworthy.

A trustworthy or authoritative person whose testimony is reliable because they know the matter directly and speak without intent to deceive; the ground of valid verbal knowledge.

An object of valid knowledge; in Nyaya the twelve or sixteen categories enumerated in the Nyaya Sutra that together map everything knowable and the path to release.

A category or knowable item; Nyaya Sutra 1.1.1 lists sixteen, beginning with pramana and prameya and ending with nigrahasthana, which structure the whole system.

Cognition or awareness in general, whether true or false; Nyaya treats it as a quality of the self that is revealed through its object and is not itself self-luminous.

Error or false cognition, such as mistaking a rope for a snake; Nyaya explains it as misattribution, where a real object is cognised but wrongly qualified by another real property.

Doubt: a cognition that grasps two or more incompatible alternatives regarding the same object without deciding between them, arising from common features, uncertainty, or conflicting testimony.

The Nyaya theory of error as misattribution: in illusion a genuine object is perceived but wrongly qualified, so the cognition is false without any object being invented.

The subject or minor term of an inference, the locus about which something is to be proved, as the hill is the paksha when one infers that it has fire.

The reason or probans in inference, the inferential mark such as smoke that is known to be invariably connected with the thing to be proved.

The probandum, the property to be established in inference, such as fire when smoke on a hill is the reason; it must be present wherever the hetu is present.

The invariable, unconditional relation of pervasion between hetu and sadhya, so that wherever the reason occurs the conclusion occurs; the logical foundation of all inference.

Counterfactual reasoning used to confirm vyapti: by showing that a contrary supposition leads to absurdity, it removes doubt about the pervasion without itself yielding a new pramana.

A fallacious reason, one that appears to prove a conclusion but fails the conditions of a valid hetu; classically five: savyabhichara, viruddha, satpratipaksha, asiddha, and badhita.

The erratic or deviating fallacious reason, which is present where the sadhya is absent, so it fails to be invariably connected with the conclusion.

The unproved fallacious reason, whose presence in the paksha is itself not established, so the inference never gets off the ground.

Friendly philosophical discussion carried on with the aim of arriving at truth, using accepted principles on both sides without seeking mere victory.

Disputatious debate in which the participants seek victory rather than truth, permitted to use quibbling, evasion, and counter-moves within the rules.

A destructive mode of debate in which one party attacks the opponent's position without advancing any thesis of their own, aiming only to refute.

Quibbling, a debating trick that deliberately misreads the opponent's words by twisting their sense, classically in three forms: verbal, generalising, and figurative.

A sophistical rejoinder that replies to a legitimate reason by invoking a mere similarity or dissimilarity, offering a ground that does not truly establish the contrary.

A ground of defeat in debate, a point at which a participant is judged to have lost; the Nyaya Sutra lists many, such as contradicting one's own thesis or failing to answer.

God in Nyaya: an eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent creator and sustainer of the world, whose existence is argued from causation, karma, and the ordering of the universe.

Liberation in Nyaya: the complete cessation of suffering, achieved when true knowledge of the categories destroys ignorance, passion, and the bondage of rebirth.

The foundational text of the school, attributed to Gautama Akshapada, organised in five chapters that set out the sixteen categories, pramanas, and debate rules.

Author of the Nyaya Bhasya, the earliest and most important commentary on the Nyaya Sutra, which fixed the interpretation of the school for later centuries.

A major later Nyaya philosopher, author of the Nyaya Kusumanjali and Atma-tattva-viveka, famous for his systematic proofs of God's existence.

The twelfth-century author of the Tattva-chintamani, whose work founded Navya-Nyaya by introducing a precise technical vocabulary and a new logical method.

The New Logic school beginning with Gangesha, distinguished by a highly formalised Sanskrit terminology for relations, qualifiers, and absences, and by sustained epistemological analysis.

The sister system of Nyaya, centred on a categorial metaphysics of substance, quality, action, generality, particularity, and inherence, and on atomism; it shares Nyaya's realist outlook.

The materialist Indian school that accepts perception alone as a pramana, rejects inference, testimony, the self, and rebirth, and is the main target of Nyaya's epistemological arguments.