Knowra Nyaya Nyaya Nyaya is a Hindu philosophical school that developed systematic accounts of reasoning, valid knowledge, debate, and reality. Its tradition holds that reliable knowledge can lead to liberation from suffering.
Pramāṇa : A means or source of knowledge accepted as reliable within an Indian philosophical system. Nyaya classifies reliable knowledge by the means that produce it.
Nyaya syllogism : A five-member Indian argument form comprising a thesis, reason, example, application, and conclusion. It displays how Nyaya presents an inference so its support is explicit.
Gautama (Nyāya philosopher) : The traditional author of the Nyāya Sūtra, the foundational text of the Nyaya school. Nyaya’s founding teachings are attributed to Gautama, also called Akṣapāda.
Vaiśeṣika : An Indian philosophical school that analyzes reality through categories such as substance, quality, action, and universals. Nyaya and Vaiśeṣika eventually converged, sharing realist accounts of knowledge and the world.
Ātman : The enduring self or subject of experience posited by several Indian philosophical traditions. Nyaya argues that memory, desire, and agency require a persistent self distinct from the body.
Perception : Knowledge arising from direct sensory or mental contact with an object. Nyaya treats perception as one of its four independent sources of knowledge.
Vyāpti : An invariable concomitance between a reason and the property it is used to establish. Nyaya relies on this dependable pervasion to connect observed evidence with an unobserved conclusion.
Nyāya Sūtra : An aphoristic Sanskrit text that sets out Nyaya’s topics, methods of knowledge, and reasoning. This foundational work organizes the school’s early account of inquiry and argument.
Buddhist epistemology : Buddhist philosophical theories of knowledge, perception, and inference developed by thinkers such as Dignāga and Dharmakīrti. Buddhist accounts challenged Nyaya’s realism and its acceptance of multiple sources of knowledge.
God in Nyaya : The Nyaya conception of an eternal, omniscient deity who orders the world and its moral consequences. Later Nyaya thinkers use inference to defend God as the cause of cosmic order.
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