Nyaya Sutras

01The sage with eyes in his feet

Gautama's other name is Akshapada, "eyes in his feet". The tradition tells that he walked so lost in thought that he fell into a well, and Bhagwan gave him eyes in his feet so that it would not happen again. His darshana is Nyaya, the method, and older names for its field are anvikshiki, the science of inquiry, and tarka. Kautilya's Arthashastra calls anvikshiki the lamp of all sciences and the support of all dharma. Nyaya sets out to answer one question for every other Shastra: how do we know what we claim to know?

02Sixteen topics, four pramanas

The first sutra names sixteen topics, starting with pramana and prameya, the means of knowing and what is to be known, and says that true knowledge of them leads to the highest good. Four pramanas are accepted: pratyaksha (perception), anumana (inference), upamana (comparison) and shabda (reliable testimony, which includes the Veda). The five-step inference is the famous one: the hill has fire; because it has smoke; wherever there is smoke there is fire, as in a kitchen; the hill has smoke; therefore it has fire.

03Perception and inference

Sutra 1.1.4 defines perception as knowledge born of contact between a sense and its object, not dependent on words, not erring, and certain. A man who takes a rope for a snake has had contact, but his knowledge errs, so it is not pratyaksha. Inference comes after perception and is of three kinds: from cause to effect, as when gathering clouds tell of rain; from effect to cause, as when a swollen river tells of rain upstream; and from what is commonly seen together. Comparison lets a city man who has been told that a gavaya looks like a cow know the animal the first time he meets it in the forest.

04Twelve things to be known

Nyaya studies logic for the sake of moksha. The prameyas, the objects whose right knowledge frees, are twelve: the Self, the body, the senses, their objects, buddhi, manas, activity, the faults, rebirth, the fruit of action, suffering and release. The second sutra gives the order of freedom as a chain. False knowledge breeds the faults of desire and aversion; faults drive activity; activity brings birth; birth brings suffering. Remove false knowledge and each link falls in turn, until suffering itself is gone. That is apavarga. The Self, says sutra 1.1.10, is known by its marks: desire, aversion, effort, pleasure, pain and knowledge.

05Rules of honest debate

Gautama names three kinds of discussion. Vada is honest debate between those seeking truth. Jalpa is debate to win, using every allowed trick. Vitanda only attacks the other side and sets up nothing of its own. Then he lists the ways an argument goes wrong: five fallacious reasons, three kinds of quibble on words, twenty-four futile replies and twenty-two points of defeat, at which the judge declares a debater beaten. These lists made shastrartha possible as a public art. Kings held assemblies where a pandit who reached a nigrahasthana conceded before the court, and the rules held in Mithila and Kashi for many centuries.

06Proving Ishvara

In the fourth adhyaya the sutras take up the cause of the world and hold that Ishvara is the cause, since the fruit of a man's karma does not come by his own effort alone. The later naiyayikas made this their great theme. Udayana of Mithila wrote the Nyaya Kusumanjali, an offering of flowers in five clusters, to prove by inference that Ishvara exists, and began and ended it as a prayer. A katha told among the pandits says that when Udayana once found the doors of the Jagannath temple at Puri closed to him, he spoke to Bhagwan as an equal who had defended him in debate, and the doors opened.

07From Vatsyayana to Navadvipa

Vatsyayana's Nyaya Bhashya is the first commentary. Uddyotakara defended it, Vachaspati Mishra glossed it, and Udayana's Nyaya Kusumanjali turned Nyaya's logic to proving Ishvara. In the fourteenth century Gangesha Upadhyaya of Mithila wrote the Tattva Chintamani and began Navya Nyaya, the new logic, whose exact technical language later spread to every Shastra. Mithila and then Navadvipa in Bengal became the great schools; students walked hundreds of kilometres to sit before their naiyayikas.

08Studied today

Tarka is still taught in the traditional pathashalas and Sanskrit universities, usually beginning with Annambhatta's short Tarka Sangraha before the sutras themselves. Students learn to state an opponent's view fairly before refuting it. The fifth adhyaya, on faulty replies and the points at which a debater loses, is the rulebook of shastrartha. A student who completes the full course receives a title such as Tarkatirtha or Nyayacharya.

What it contains

1. 1
   Adhyaya 1

   The sixteen topics are named and defined, from pramana to nigrahasthana. The first ahnika defines the pramanas, the twelve prameyas and the five members of an inference. The second defines discussion, quibble, futile reply and the points of defeat.

2. 2
   Adhyaya 2

   Doubt is examined first, then the four pramanas are defended one by one against those who deny them. A long discussion takes up whether the word is eternal, and the authority of the Veda is upheld as the word of a reliable speaker.

3. 3
   Adhyaya 3

   The objects of knowledge begin with the Self, shown to be other than the body and the senses. The adhyaya then treats the body, the senses, their objects, buddhi and manas, and argues that the Self is eternal and passes from body to body.

4. 4
   Adhyaya 4

   The remaining prameyas: activity, faults, rebirth, the fruit of action, suffering and final release (apavarga). Ishvara is discussed as a cause, rival views of the world are examined, and the adhyaya closes with the means to knowledge: yoga practice and debate with the learned.

5. 5
   Adhyaya 5

   The futile replies (jati) and the points of defeat (nigrahasthana) in debate. The first ahnika lists the twenty-four jatis with examples; the second lists the twenty-two nigrahasthanas, from shifting one's thesis to falling silent. It is the referee's handbook of the shastrartha.

Famous verses

प्रमाणप्रमेयसंशयप्रयोजनदृष्टान्तसिद्धान्तावयवतर्कनिर्णयवादजल्पवितण्डाहेत्वाभासच्छलजातिनिग्रहस्थानानां तत्त्वज्ञानान्निःश्रेयसाधिगमः

The highest good is reached through true knowledge of the sixteen: means of knowledge, objects of knowledge, doubt, purpose, example, established tenet, members of inference, reasoning, ascertainment, debate, wrangling, cavil, fallacy, quibble, futile reply and the point of defeat.Nyaya Sutra 1.1.1

दुःखजन्मप्रवृत्तिदोषमिथ्याज्ञानानामुत्तरोत्तरापाये तदनन्तरापायादपवर्गः

Suffering, birth, activity, fault and false knowledge: when each later one is removed, the one before it goes too, and that is release.Nyaya Sutra 1.1.2

प्रत्यक्षानुमानोपमानशब्दाः प्रमाणानि

Perception, inference, comparison and testimony are the means of valid knowledge.Nyaya Sutra 1.1.3

इन्द्रियार्थसन्निकर्षोत्पन्नं ज्ञानमव्यपदेश्यमव्यभिचारि व्यवसायात्मकं प्रत्यक्षम्

Perception is knowledge arising from contact of sense and object, not dependent on words, unerring and definite.Nyaya Sutra 1.1.4