09
Nyāya — How to Reason and Debate
before this →Mīmāṃsā — How to Read an Injunction
Mīmāṃsā handles the sentence. Nyāya handles the argument. It is the tradition’s logic, epistemology, and rules of debate — and it is unforgiving about method.
The four instruments (and a fifth school beside it)
pratyakṣa
perception — the contact of sense and object
anumāna
inference — from a mark to what it marks — fire from smoke
upamāna
analogy — knowing a thing by its known likeness
śabda
testimony — the sentence of a reliable speaker
Beside Nyāya sits Vaiśeṣika, its sister school of ontology: the categories (padārtha) into which everything that exists falls — substance, quality, action, generality, particularity, inherence, and absence. Nyāya reasons; Vaiśeṣika supplies the furniture.
The anatomy of a valid argument
Gautama · Vātsyāyana · Gaṅgeśa
The five-membered proof — thesis, reason, example, application, conclusion — is a public form: anyone can check it. Debate itself is catalogued: vāda (seeking truth), jalpa (winning), vitaṇḍā (merely attacking).
the disciplineName your pramāṇa, or your conclusion is unearned.
This is the same rule the whole landscape runs on — stated here as formal logic.
PRATIJÑĀthe thesis
HETUthe reason
DṚṢṬĀNTAthe example
UPANAYAthe application
NIGAMANAthe conclusion
introduces →nyāyapramāṇaanumānavādavaiśeṣikapadārtha