Nyāya (Sanskrit: न्यायः, IAST: nyāyaḥ), literally meaning "justice", "rules", "method" or "judgment", is one of the six orthodox (Āstika) schools of Hindu philosophy. Nyāya's most significant contributions to Indian philosophy were the systematic development of the theory of logic, methodology, and its treatises on epistemology.
Nyāya epistemology accepts four out of six pramanas as reliable means of gaining knowledge – pratyakṣa (perception), anumāṇa (inference), upamāna (comparison and analogy) and śabda (word, testimony of past or present reliable experts). In its metaphysics, Nyāya school is closer to the Vaisheshika school of Hinduism than others. It holds that human suffering results from mistakes/defects produced by activity under wrong knowledge (notions and ignorance). Moksha (liberation), it states, is gained through right knowledge. This premise led Nyāya to concern itself with epistemology, that is the reliable means to gain correct knowledge and to remove wrong notions. False knowledge is not merely ignorance to Naiyyayikas, it includes delusion. Correct knowledge is discovering and overcoming one's delusions, and understanding true nature of soul, self and reality.
Naiyyayika scholars approached philosophy as a form of direct realism, stating that anything that really exists is in principle humanly knowable. To them, correct knowledge and understanding is different from simple, reflexive cognition; it requires Anuvyavasaya (अनुव्यवसाय, cross-examination of cognition, reflective cognition of what one thinks one knows). An influential collection of texts on logic and reason is the Nyāya Sūtras, attributed to Aksapada Gautama, variously estimated to have been composed between the 6th century BCE and the 2nd century CE.
Nyāya school shares some of its methodology and human suffering foundations with Buddhism; however, a key difference between the two is that Buddhism believes that there is neither a soul nor self; Nyāya school like some other schools of Hinduism such as Dvaita and Viśiṣṭādvaita believes that there is a soul and self, with liberation (mokṣa) as a state of removal of ignorance, wrong knowledge, the gain of correct knowledge, and unimpeded continuation of self.
Etymology
Nyaya (न्याय) is a Sanskrit word which means justice, equality for all being, specially a collection of general or universal rules. In some contexts, it means model, axiom, plan, legal proceeding, judicial sentence, or judgment. Nyaya could also mean, "that which shows the way" tracing its Sanskrit etymology. In the theory of logic, and Indian texts discussing it, the term also refers to an argument consisting of an enthymeme or sometimes for any syllogism. In philosophical context, Nyaya encompasses propriety, logic and method.
Panini, revered Sanskrit grammarian, derives the "Nyaya" from the root "i" which conveys the same meaning as "gam" – to go. "Nyaya" signifying logic is there etymologically identical with "nigama" the conclusion of a syllogism.
Nyaya is related to several other concepts and words used in Indian philosophies: Hetu-vidya (science of causes), Anviksiki (science of inquiry, systematic philosophy), Pramana-sastra (epistemology, science of correct knowledge), Tattva-sastra (science of categories), Tarka-vidya (science of reasoning, innovation, synthesis), Vadartha (science of discussion) and Phakkika-sastra (science of uncovering sophism, fraud, error, finding fakes). Some of these subsume or deploy the tools of Nyaya.
Development
Nasadiya Sukta
Then was not non-existent nor existent:
there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.
What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter?
Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?
...
Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it?
Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation?
The gods came after this world's production,Who knows then whence it first came into being?"
— Rig Veda, Creation....10:129–1, 10:129–6
The historical development of Nyāya school is unclear, although Nasadiya hymns of Book 10 Chapter 129 of Rigveda recite its spiritual questions in logical propositions. In early centuries BCE, states Clooney, the early Nyāya scholars began compiling the science of rational, coherent inquiry and pursuit of knowledge.
Foundational Text
Aksapada Gautama composed the Nyāya Sūtras (by the 2nd century CE), a foundational text for Nyāya, that primarily discusses logic, methodology and epistemology. Gautama is also known as Aksapada and Dirghatapas. The names Gotama and Gautama points to the family to which he belonged while the names Aksapada and Dirghatapas refer respectively to his meditative habit and practice of long penance. The people of Mithila (modern Darbhanga in North Bihar) ascribe the foundation of Nyāya philosophy to Gautama, husband of Ahalya, and point out as the place of his birth a village named Gautamasthana where a fair is held every year on the 9th day of the lunar month of Chaitra (March–April). It is situated 28 miles north-east of Darbhanga.
Concepts in the foundational text, the Nyaya Sutras, were clarified through a tradition of commentaries. Commentaries were also a means to defend the philosophy from misinterpretations by scholars of other traditions.
The Nyāya scholars that followed refined, expanded, and applied the Nyaya Sutras to spiritual questions. While the early Nyaya scholars published little to no analysis on whether supernatural power or God exists, they did apply their insights into reason and reliable means to knowledge to the questions of nature of existence, spirituality, happiness and moksha. Later Nyāya scholars, such as Udayana, examined various arguments on theism and attempted to prove existence of God. Other Nyāya scholars offered arguments to disprove the existence of God.
The most important contribution made by the Nyāya school to Hindu thought has been its treatises on epistemology and system of logic that, subsequently, has been adopted by the majority of the other Indian schools.
Textual sources
In the Yājñavalkya Smṛti, Nyāya is mentioned as one of the fourteen principal branches of learning. The Matsya-Purāṇa states that knowledge of Nyāya came from the mouth of Brahmā. The Mahābhārata also mentions principles of Nyāya.
The earliest text of the Nyāya School is the Nyāya Sūtra of Akṣapāda Gautama. The text is divided into five books, each having two sections. Vatsyayana's Nyāya Bhāṣya is a classic commentary on the Nyāya Sūtra. Udyotakara's Nyāya Vārttika (6th century CE) is written to defend Vātsāyana against the attacks made by Dignāga. Vācaspati Miśra's Nyāyavārttikatātparyaṭīkā (9th century CE) is the next major exposition of this school. Two other texts, Nyāyaṣūcinibandha and Nyāyasūtraddhāra are also attributed to him. Udayana's (984 CE) Nyāyatātparyapariśuddhi is an important commentary on Vācaspati's treatise. His Nyāyakusumāñjali is the first systematic account of theistic Nyāya. His other works include Ātmatattvaviveka, Kiraṇāvali and Nyāyapariśiṣṭa. Jayanta Bhatta's Nyāyamañjari (10th century CE) is basically an independent work. Bhasarvajna's Nyayasara (10th century CE) is a survey of Nyāya philosophy.
The later works on Nyāya accepted the Vaiśeṣika categories and Varadarāja's Tārkikarakṣā (12th century CE) is a notable treatise of this syncretist school. Keśava Miśra's Tārkabhaṣā (13th century CE) is another important work of this school.
Gangeśa Upādhyāya's Tattvacintāmaṇi (14th century CE) is the first major treatise of the new school of Navya-Nyāya. His son, Vardhamāna Upādhyāya's Nyāyanibandhaprakāśa, though a commentary on Udayana's Nyāyatātparyapariśuddhi, incorporated his father's views. Jayadeva wrote a commentary on Tattvacintāmaṇi known as Āloka (14th century CE). Vāsudeva Sārvabhauma's Tattvacintāmaṇivyākhyā (16th century CE) is first great work of Navadvipa school of Navya-Nyāya. Raghunātha Śiromaṇi's Tattvacintāmaṇidīdhiti and Padārthakhaṇḍana are the next important works of this school. Viśvanatha's Nyāyasūtravṛtti (17th century CE) is also a notable work. The Commentaries on Tattvacintāmaṇidīdhiti by Jagadish Tarkalankar (17th century CE) and Gadadhar Bhattacharya (17th century CE) are the last two notable works of this school.
Annaṁbhatta (17th century CE) tried to develop a consistent system by combining the ancient and the new schools, Prācina nyāya and Navya-Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika to develop the nyāya-vaiśeṣika school. His Tarkasaṁgraha and Dīpikā are the popular manuals of this school.
Sixteen categories (padārthas)
The Nyāya metaphysics recognizes sixteen padarthas or categories and includes all six (or seven) categories of the Vaisheshika in the second one of them, called prameya.
These sixteen categories are:
- Methods and objects of inquiry
- pramāṇa (valid means of knowledge or knowledge sources),
- prameya (objects of valid knowledge),
- Conditions and the components of inquiry
- saṁśaya (doubt),
- prayojana (aim),
- dṛṣṭānta (example),
- siddhānta (conclusion or accepted position),
- avayava (members of syllogism or inferential components),
- tarka (hypothetical/suppositional reasoning),
- nirṇaya (settlement or certainty),
- Forms of and strategies for debate
- vāda (truth-directed debate),
- jalpa (victory-directed debate),
- vitaṇḍā (destructive debate),
- hetvābhāsa (defective reasons),
- chala (tricks),
- jāti (sophisticated refutation or misleading/futile objections) and
- nigrahasthāna (point of defeat or clinchers).
According to Matthew Dasti and Stephen Phillips, it may be useful to interpret the word jnana as cognition rather than knowledge when studying the Nyāya system.
The self
Nyaya posits that there exists a self distinct from the mind, which is distinct from the body. The self is a nonphysical substance and is not inherently conscious.
The mind (manas) is postulated as a distinct entity because one can have two perceptions at the same time of the same object, through two different senses.
Theory of causation
Metaphysics
Nyaya-Vaisheshika offers one of the most vigorous efforts at the construction of a substantialist, realist ontology that the world has ever seen. It provides an extended critique of event-ontologies and idealist metaphysics. (...) This ontology is Platonistic, realistic, but neither exclusively physicalistic nor phenomenalistic.
— Karl Potter, The Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies
A cause is defined as an unconditional and invariable antecedent of an effect and an effect as an unconditional and invariable consequent of a cause. The same cause produces the same effect; and the same effect is produced by the same cause. The cause is not present in any hidden form whatsoever in its effect.
Nyaya recognizes three kinds of cause:
- Samavayi, material cause, e.g. thread of a cloth.
- Asamavayi, colour of the thread which gives the colour of the cloth.
- Nimitta, efficient cause, e.g. the weaver of the cloth.
The following conditions should be met for something to be a cause:
- The cause must be antecedent [Purvavrtti]
- Invariability [Niyatapurvavrtti]
- Unconditionality [Ananyathasiddha]
Nyaya recognizes five kinds of accidental antecedents [Anyathasiddha]
- Mere accidental antecedent. E.g., The colour of the potter's cloth.
- Remote cause is not a cause because it is not unconditional. E.g., The father of the potter.
- The co-effects of a cause are not causally related.
- Eternal substances, or eternal conditions are not unconditional antecedents, e.g. space.
- Unnecessary things, e.g. the donkey of the potter
Epistemology
Nyāya treatises on epistemology widely influenced other schools of Hinduism. In Nyaya philosophy, knowledge is a type of "awareness event that is in accordance with its object by virtue of having been produced by a well-functioning epistemic instrument." Pramāṇa, a Sanskrit word, literally is "means of knowledge". It encompasses one or more reliable and valid means by which human beings gain accurate, true knowledge. The focus of Pramana is how correct knowledge can be acquired, how one knows, how one doesn't, and to what extent knowledge pertinent about someone or something can be acquired. By definition, pramāṇas are factive i.e. they cannot produce false belief. So, while statements can be false, testimony cannot be false.
Nyāya scholars accepted four valid means (pramāṇa) of obtaining valid knowledge (prameya) –
- perception (pratyakṣa),
- inference (anumāna),
- comparison (upamāna), and
- word/testimony of reliable sources (śabda).
The Nyāya scholars, along with those from other schools of Hinduism, also developed a theory of error, to methodically establish means to identify errors and the process by which errors are made in human pursuit of knowledge. These include saṁśaya (problems, inconsistencies, doubts) and viparyaya (contrariness, errors) which can be corrected or resolved by a systematic process of tarka (reasoning, technique).
Pratyaksha (perception)
Pratyakṣa (perception) occupies the foremost position in the Nyāya epistemology. Perception can be of two types, laukika (ordinary) and alaukika (extraordinary). Ordinary perception is defined by Akṣapāda Gautama in his Nyāya Sutra (I, i.4) as a 'non-erroneous cognition which is produced by the intercourse of sense-organs with the objects'.
Indian texts identify four requirements for correct perception: Indriyarthasannikarsa (direct experience by one's sensory organ(s) with the object, whatever is being studied), Avyapadesya (non-verbal; correct perception is not through hearsay, according to ancient Indian scholars, where one's sensory organ relies on accepting or rejecting someone else's perception), Avyabhicara (does not wander; correct perception does not change, nor is it the result of deception because one's sensory organ or means of observation is drifting, defective, suspect) and Vyavasayatmaka (definite; correct perception excludes judgments of doubt, either because of one's failure to observe all the details, or because one is mixing inference with observation and observing what one wants to observe, or not observing what one does not want to observe).