Pramana Wiki

Nyāya

27 min read

Nyāya (རིགས་པ་ཅན་པ་)

Nyāya is the opponent whose vocabulary the Buddhist epistemologists adopted and whose ontology they spent three treatises refuting. Dignāga answers it in five of the six chapters of the pramanasamuccaya—more than any other school—and the sixth is itself built on Nyāya materials. Dreyfus puts the point flatly: although Dharmakīrti also refutes the Sāṃkhyas and the grammarians, “the bulk of his argument is directed against the Nyaya positions” (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, p. 52). Two fronts carry most of the weight in our material. The first is the definition of direct perception (མངོན་སུམ་) as a cognition born of contact between faculty and object, which dignaga takes apart mark by mark in pramanasamuccaya I. The second is the Naiyāyika proof of a self from the presence of life, which dharmakirti uses to show that a reason with no established relation to what it proves is no reason at all. A third front is procedural rather than doctrinal: sakya-pandita devotes most of pramanayuktanidhi chapter 11 to collapsing Akṣapāda’s twenty-two points of defeat into four.

Overview

The school takes its name from nyāya, which Dreyfus glosses simply as “reasoning” (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, p. 52); the Tibetan རིགས་པ་ཅན་པ་ renders it as “those possessed of reasoning”. Its founding text is the Nyāya Sūtras, traditionally ascribed to Akṣapāda Gautama, whom the Tibetan tradition knows by the epithet རྐང་མིག་, “Foot-Eye”. Estimates of the sūtras’ composition span the sixth century BCE to the second century CE, with Gautama’s own work usually placed around the second century CE; Vātsyāyana’s authoritative commentary is dated to the fifth century by most, though a minority put it as early as the second century BCE (Wikipedia—the spread is the state of the scholarship, not a settled date). Dreyfus notes that the school gained further ground from Kumārila’s partial support and from the Naiyāyika Uddyotakara, both probably active shortly before Dharmakīrti (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, p. 52). Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika developed in parallel and merged in the eleventh or twelfth century; from the fourteenth, Gaṅgeśa’s Tattvacintāmaṇi founded Navya-Nyāya, the “new Nyāya”, whose technical idiom dominated Sanskrit intellectual life until the collapse of Mughal patronage and the British reorganisation of education brought it to a standstill. By the end of the nineteenth century it had ceased to be a living philosophical system, though its texts and style are still read in Indian Sanskrit scholarship (Wikipedia; Ganeri, Navya-Nyāya, via web search).

The translator’s introduction to Gorampa’s commentary reports the school as Tibetan sources have it: Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika are very similar with only a few differences; Nyāya developed the detailed system of logic; it held the Vedas to be infallible; it seems to have been nontheistic, though later Naiyāyikas produced arguments for a divine creator. Its path to liberation resembles the Sāṃkhya in taking the self to be separate and independent, so that valid knowledge is what liberates—the Nyāya Sūtra opens by saying that only true knowledge leads to salvation. And on the point that divides it from its sister school: “Where Naiyāyikas accept four means of valid knowledge, Vaiśeṣikas, like Buddhists, only accept direct perception and inference” (gorampa-pramanavartika, translator’s introduction).

Two features of the Nyāya Sūtras bear directly on what our texts do with the school. Its opening enumerates sixteen categories of enquiry, and unlike the Sāṃkhya’s twenty-five realities or the Abhidharma’s list of elements these are largely categories of debate: doubt, purpose, familiar instance, established tenet, the members of an inference, discussion, sophistical disputation, cavil, fallacies, quibbles, futile rejoinders (ལྟག་ཆོད་, jāti), and points of defeat (ཚར་གཅད་གནས་, nigrahasthāna). Book 5 enumerates twenty-four futile rejoinders and twenty-two points of defeat (Wikipedia). Those two numbers are exactly the ones Sakya Paṇḍita works through in pramanayuktanidhi chapter 11, though our material cites Akṣapāda rather than the sūtra, and the individual items are not matched up here.

Core doctrines

Direct perception is contact between faculty and object

The definition Dignāga cites, and the one everything else in pramanasamuccaya I turns on:

རིགས་པ་ཅན་རྣམས་དབང་པོ་དང་དོན་ཕྲད་པ་ལས་སྐྱེས་པའི་ཤེས་པ་ཐ་སྙད་དུ་བྱ་བ་མ་ཡིན་པ་འཁྲུལ་པ་མེད་པ་ཞེན་པའི་བདག་ཉིད་ནི་མངོན་སུམ་མོ།

The Naiyāyikas [assert]: Direct perception is cognition arising from the contact of sense faculty and object, not operating through verbal designation, non-mistaken, and having the nature of determinate apprehension. (pramanasamuccaya I)

Four marks, then: born of faculty–object contact; free of verbal designation; non-erroneous; and of the nature of determination (vyavasāyātmaka). The fourth is the one with teeth. On the Nyāya account perception does not merely present its object but settles it, which is why Naiyāyikas can hold that a sense cognition apprehends universals and still call it perception. Gedun Drub, treating Praśastapāda and the Nyāya as one school on this point, states the position as mistakenly computing “the conception recognising the seen object” as clearly-manifest, and as perception (Gedun Drub’s commentary on PV III). Against Dharmakīrti’s conceptual cognition / perception divide, this is the whole quarrel in miniature.

Four means of valid cognition

Beyond direct perception and inference the Naiyāyikas admit comparison (ཉེར་འཇལ་, upamāna) and testimony from a reliable source (śabda, སྒྲ་). Dignāga’s opening verse leaves no room for either, and it fixes the count by the object rather than by the knower:

མངོན་སུམ་དང་ནི་རྗེས་སུ་དཔག །ཚད་མའོ་མཚན་ཉིད་གཉིས་གཞལ་བྱ། །

དེ་ལ་རབ་སྦྱོར་ཕྱིར་ཚད་མ། །གཞན་ནི་ཡོད་པ་མ་ཡིན་ནོ། །

Direct perception (pratyakṣa) and inference (anumāna) are the [two] valid cognitions (pramāṇa), for the objects to be known (prameya) have only two characteristics (lakṣaṇa)—the specifically characterised phenomenon (svalakṣaṇa) and the generally characterised phenomenon (sāmānyalakṣaṇa). Because [these two] thoroughly engage [their respective objects], they are valid cognitions. There is no other [valid cognition] besides them. (pramanasamuccaya I)

Two kinds of object, the specifically characterised (རང་མཚན་) and the generally characterised (སྤྱི་མཚན་), hence two and only two means of knowing them. Fazun’s exposition draws the consequence for this school in as many words: the Nyāya’s scriptural authority and analogy “are nominal pramāṇas, not genuine pramāṇas”.

Substances, wholes and real universals

The Nyāya adopted at an early stage the six categories of the old Vaiśeṣika ontology—substance (རྫས་, dravya), quality (ཡོན་ཏན་, guṇa), activity (ལས་, karma), universal (སྤྱི་, sāmānya), particularity (བྱེ་བྲག་, viśeṣa) and inherence (ཡང་དག་འཕྲོད་པ་, samavāya)—and it is through Nyāya that they permeated Indian philosophical discussion at large, as Aristotle’s categories did in the West (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, pp. 53, 58). Because the arguments about the categories, wholes and real universals belong more properly to Vaiśeṣika, only what our texts specifically attach to Nyāya is set out here.

Its governing principle is stated in a maxim Dreyfus quotes: “Whatever is, is knowable and nameable”—whatever we experience must exist as we conceive it (p. 54). Applied to unity, this yields the doctrine of the whole (avayavin, ཡན་ལག་ཅན་): a cloth is a new substance over and above the threads, not reducible to them and not pre-existing in them, and since cause and effect must differ, cloth and threads coexist in the same place while being different, bound by inherence (pp. 56–57). Applied to commonality, it yields real kinds: there is a cowness inhering in every cow, ubiquitous and unmoving (pp. 69–70), present regardless of whether any particular cow exists (p. 138). Sakya Paṇḍita’s commentary records the same alignment from the Tibetan side—“Vaiśeṣikas and Naiyāyikas held universal and particular as distinct; Sāṃkhyas held them identical—but all asserted a real universal” (sodargye-pramanayuktanidhi, on chapter 4).

The five-membered proof and the machinery of debate

A Nyāya proof states thesis, reason, example, application (ཉེ་བར་སྦྱོར་བ་, upanaya—“so it is likewise”) and conclusion (མཇུག་སྡུད་, nigamana—“so too for the probandum”). Alongside it stands the apparatus of the sixteen categories. Our two sources give different counts of the fallacious reason (གཏན་ཚིགས་ལྟར་སྣང་བ་, hetvābhāsa): Dignāga attributes five to the Naiyāyikas (pramanasamuccaya III), while Sakya Paṇḍita attributes to Akṣapāda the familiar three—unestablished, inconclusive, contradictory (pramanayuktanidhi chapter 11). To these are added the twenty-four futile rejoinders and the twenty-two points of defeat. Dignāga’s chapter on sham rebuttals is built on this material rather than replacing it: the preface to Fazun’s exposition says of pramanasamuccaya VI that “this chapter is constructed upon the basis of Nyāya doctrines and has not been fundamentally reworked”.

The refutations

Dignāga

The pramanasamuccaya refutes the Naiyāyikas in four of its six chapters, and the pattern is consistent: the definition is not merely wrong but idle—its qualifiers exclude nothing, or exclude too much, or destroy the position they were meant to protect.

The four marks of perception (PS I). “That too is untenable” is the verdict, and each mark then fails separately.

Free of verbal designation excludes nothing, since no sense cognition can make verbal designations in the first place; only inferential consciousness has an object set up by designation. Non-erroneous likewise: error belongs to mental consciousness, and to call a cognition non-erroneous says no more than that each consciousness takes its own object-sphere.

Of the nature of determination is the fatal one. Determination is ascertainment, and ascertainment is the result of valid cognition (ཚད་འབྲས་)—the instrument cognises the object, the result ascertains it. If perception is itself the ascertaining, there is no result left for it to produce, and the Nyāya’s own instrument-and-result structure collapses. Dignāga adds that if these qualifiers were meant to display the cognition’s essence rather than define perception, one could go on adding “not produced by quality or substance”, “not the sphere of the non-empty”, without end.

Contact of faculty and object fails on the facts. Full contact would make mountains invisible, yet distant seeing happens; nor could an eye take an object larger than itself. If the faculty travels out to meet the object, it must leave its support, which it does not—the eye stays in the body and still sees the mountain—and were it to travel it would have to grasp whatever lay against its seat.

The definition then leaves one’s own pleasure and pain unknowable. A cognition grasping one’s pleasure, pain, desire, hatred or effort relies on no reason, so it is not inference; it arises from no faculty–object contact, so on this definition it is not perception. If the grasping cognition is no valid cognition, its object is no object of valid cognition—a considerable fault. The Naiyāyika replies that there is a mental faculty (manas), established because nothing rules it out. Dignāga: then “ear faculty” and the rest are empty words too, since nothing rules out any faculty; mere non-exclusion establishes nothing (pramanasamuccaya I, refutation of the Nyāya position on perception).

Instrument and result (PS I). Three Naiyāyika attempts to locate the result, three failures. Let the cognition of the universal property be the instrument and the cognition of the particular the result—no, distinct objects are distinct things: “One does not chop the dān-tree and fell the rāṣa-tree; such a thing is never seen.” Let one cognition be both instrument and object, as when I know my own “I”—then the cognition of the qualifier is both as well, and nothing is gained. Let the result be the turning back from not-knowing, doubt and misapprehension—but no cognition dispels these universally, and the mere absence of not-knowing is a non-entity, never observed as an object of valid cognition. Dignāga’s own answer to the same problem is self-awareness (རང་རིག་), which is why this refutation sits where it does in the chapter.

The three kinds of inference (PS II). The Naiyāyikas hold inference to be preceded by perception and divided into possessing-the-prior (pūrvavat), possessing-the-remainder (śeṣavat) and seeing-the-universal (sāmānyato-dṛṣṭa). Dignāga denies the premise before touching the divisions: the connection between reason and reason-possessor is not a sphere of sense consciousness, and the two relata are not grasped as relata by perception. Then the divisions. “Possessing-the-prior” read as “like the former” fails, since all the relata are present in any inference; read as the effect possessing its prior cause, inferring effect from cause is errant, for the cause may stand while obstacles block it or auxiliaries are missing, and then no effect arises. “Possessing-the-remainder” read as “like the other” is errant too—similar colour does not make taste similar. Finally the restriction that only possessing-the-prior has three kinds because it takes objects of all three times is unreasonable, since every inference does (pramanasamuccaya II, refutation of the Nyāya).

The thesis (PS III). The Naiyāyika defines the thesis (དམ་བཅའ་) as what displays the probandum, meaning what is not yet established. Then an unestablished reason and a faulty example become theses as well, since they too present something not yet established: in “sound is eternal, because it is tangible, like a cognition”, the reason states something to be established. Press further—is the probandum the property, the property-possessor, or both? If the bare property, no similar-property example is available for it; if the bare property-possessor, the reason is pointless, since “sound” is already established for both parties. Press on the restrictive particle: put “only” in front and it is idle, since “displays” already excludes the means of proof; put it after and what is stated for the sake of reason and example becomes a thesis too, which is not what the Naiyāyika wants.

A second Nyāya claim in the same chapter—that a reason contradicting the thesis is a fault of the thesis—is refused on both halves. In “sound is eternal, because everything is impermanent”, “sound” falls under “everything”, so the reason is a part of the thesis and therefore unestablished; the defect is a fault of the reason and of the example, not of the thesis.

The five fallacious reasons (PS III). Their list is having-errancy, contradictory, time-alike, probandum-alike and over-due. Having-errancy is simply the inconclusive, with no further distinction drawn. Contradicting one’s own accepted tenet is a fault of the establisher, not a separate category. Time-alike (“the self is eternal, because not different from the body”) is inconclusive, since ether and pots alike display the mark. Probandum-alike (“sound is eternal, because non-tangible, like a cognition”) is misdescribed: “non-tangible” is established on sound, so the reason is not unestablished, and what is alike to the probandum is the example, not the reason. Over-due—stating the reason belatedly—is either an incomplete statement, in which case the missing member cannot be fallacious, or a later statement that does establish the probandum. Fazun notes that several lines of the probandum-alike passage appear corrupt, so part of this reconstruction rests on a text the translator himself could not settle [unverified].

The example, and two members too many (PS IV). The Naiyāyikas say the example is what makes one comprehend the probandum’s property through its similar property. Dignāga answers that the example has no such power of its own—every member of a proof is only one gateway to comprehending the probandum, and the comprehension is established by something else. Then the members: once the example is ascertained, the probandum is already established, so applying “so it is likewise” and then “so too for the probandum” adds nothing but faults of verbal excess. The root verse keeps three things and discards the rest:

རང་གིས་༼གི༽ངེས་པ་བཞིན་གཞན་ལ། །ངེས་པ་བསྐྱེད་པར་འདོད་པ་ཡིས། །ཕྱོགས་ཆོས་ཉིད་དང་འབྲེལ་པ་དང་། །བསྒྲུབ་བྱ་བརྗོད་བྱ་གཞན་རྣམས་སྤང་། །

Just as by one’s own certainty, so, wishing to generate certainty in another, [one states] the property of the position, the connection, and the probandum; the other [proof-members] to be stated—the application, the conclusion, and the rest—are set aside. (pramanasamuccaya IV)

Fazun’s preface calls the transformation of the five-membered proof into the three-membered form epoch-making, and everything downstream in the Tibetan tradition assumes it. How many members are left is less settled than that description suggests: the Tibetan commentary behind our translation reads the verse as keeping the probandum among the three things conveyed while dispensing with the separate statement of thesis, application and conclusion, whereas Fazun’s Chinese groups the probandum with what is discarded (translations/pramanasamuccaya/translation-notes.md, ch. 4 divergences). Sakya Paṇḍita’s two-member count follows the first reading.

No third means of knowing (PS V). The Mīmāṃsakas and Naiyāyikas count verbal cognition as a third valid cognition alongside perception and inference. Dignāga’s answer is that a word reaches its object by the same “not arising without it” relation a logical reason does, displaying its meaning by excluding other meanings; verbal cognition therefore falls under inference and is no separate means at all (pramanasamuccaya V). This is where apoha enters as the alternative to the Nyāya semantics of real kinds.

Dharmakīrti

The proof of a self from life-force. This is the deepest single engagement with the Nyāya in our material, and it is worth following through, because Dharmakīrti’s own doctrine of the relation is what does the work.

The Naiyāyika argues: the living body has a self, because it possesses life-force. The reason is admitted to have no similar instance—nothing is available on which self and life-force are jointly observed—so it is offered as a reason with only the negative pervasion (ལྡོག་ཁྱབ་, vyatirekavyāpti): life-force is nowhere found in the dissimilar class, among the soulless. The consequence Dharmakīrti draws follows in the prose at I.18–19: if merely not seeing the reason in the dissimilar class were enough to establish the negative pervasion, then “the Naiyāyika reasoning that the presence of life and so forth used to establish the existence of a self in a living body would be perfect reasoning, because the reason is a property of the subject and is merely not seen in the incongruent class”—which contradicts Dignāga, who called that reasoning fallacious and compared it to using “that which is heard” as a reason (gorampa-pramanavartika, on PV I.18–19; the chapter-1 attribution map in translations/pramanavartika/translation-notes.md places the passage at I.19 prose).

The general principle behind it is Dharmakīrti’s reply to the Mīmāṃsaka two verses earlier:

།མི་མཐུན་ཕྱོགས་ལ་མ་མཐོང་བ། །ཙམ་གྱིས་འཁྲུལ་པ་མེད་པ་མིན། །འཁྲུལ་པར་སྲིད་པ་ཅན་ཉིད་ཕྱིར། །ཕྲུ་བའི་འབྲས་ནི་ཚོས་པ་བཞིན།

Merely not seeing [the reason] in the dissimilar class is not the absence of the fault, because the possibility of the fault remains—like [concluding] that the rice [left] in the pot is cooked. (pramanavartika I.13)

Not seeing is not seeing that there is nothing to see. Immediately after this verse Gorampa records the Naiyāyikas asking what “remainder” is supposed to mean, and giving their own threefold division in answer—the result established from the cause, the cause established from the result, and the general seeing—none of which, Dharmakīrti holds, is what the term means (gorampa-pramanavartika, on PV I.13). Dharmakīrti’s positive requirement is that reason and probandum stand in one of two relations, identity of nature or causation, both of which are cases of invariable concomitance (མེད་ན་མི་འབྱུང་); a reason resting on inherence or conjunction, as the realist schools posit, has no such relation and is therefore no reason at all (Gedun Drub on PV IV).

Gedun Drub’s commentary on PV IV works through the Naiyāyika’s defences one at a time, and the exchange is unusually clean. Life-force is the self’s essence—no: life-force is impermanent and the self permanent. Life-force arises from the self—no: with the self’s beneficial action life-force is not seen to arise, and without it not seen to fail, so no invariable concomitance holds. Then the argument turns on the Naiyāyika’s own stipulation that the self is radically hidden. If the self cannot be perceived even where it exists, how is “pots lack a self” established? Not by non-perception, since on the opponent’s own terms non-perception of the self proves nothing. Life-force is different: its presence or absence is seen in the property-possessor, which is why we know that living bodies have it and pots do not. So the reason has neither positive concomitance nor negative pervasion established, and the reason to which it is compared—“sound is permanent, because audible”—fails in the same way, by lacking any similar instance. The Naiyāyika’s last move is to borrow the Buddhist’s own no-self: the similar class is non-existent, so refutation and affirmation cannot operate there, and only dissimilar-class absence remains. Gedun Drub’s reply catches the self-contradiction—the opponent denies life-force where it exists and affirms operations upon what he says is nothing—and adds that if non-things could sustain no refutation or affirmation, ordinary language would be cut off entirely. Finally, the Naiyāyika’s fallback that the self is the cause of cognition is answered causally: life-force, the opening of the eyes and the rest arise from the preceding moment of mindful volition, which arises from sense-object cognition, which arises from its own homogeneous prior moment; admit anything else and a permanent self can be posited as a cause wherever no benefiting function is observed at all.

Determinate perception (PV III). Gedun Drub records the Naiyāyika argument that the Buddhist cannot hold perception non-conceptual: the Abhidharma says a sense consciousness takes an aggregate as its object, an aggregate is a whole, and determining a whole as distinct from its parts requires universals—so there must be determinate perception (མངོན་སུམ་རྟོག་པ་ཅན་) and real universals to support it. Dharmakīrti’s answer, as Dreyfus reconstructs it, is that the object is a collection of atoms and not a synthetic entity: single atoms cannot generate a cognition, so they act in a group, and the Abhidharma calls the object a universal only because cognition is not restricted to one atom (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, pp. 87–88, quoting PV III). Against the companion objection that without unitary wholes we cannot account for our sense of unitary objects, Dharmakīrti replies with sesame seeds—“If several [elements] are not apprehended simultaneously despite their [belonging] to a single sphere [of activity of a sense], how is it that many sesame seeds can appear to be apprehended simultaneously?” (p. 88). A heap is perceived without any synthetic entity pulling it together.

The direct refutation of determinate perception runs through recognition. The cognitions that take an earlier and a later sound, a magician’s two eggs, or successive moments of a lamp as “this very thing” recognise, and if recognition were perception they would be perception—but they mistake earlier for later, and they depend on remembering what was previously experienced, so they are not born of the senses at all (Gedun Drub on PV III). The Nyāya doctrine of the whole is dispatched more briskly. “This thread is cloth”, Dharmakīrti says, is the Naiyāyikas’ own coinage, not the world’s: the world says the cow has horns, not that the horns have a cow—and “the cow has horns” is said because the cow’s other limbs are seen without gaps between them, not because any real combination has been perceived. Dreyfus records the jokes from the same stretch of argument: if the partless whole is entirely present in the moving hand, do all the other limbs move? Are all the limbs covered when one is covered, and do all change colour when one is painted? (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, p. 58).

The five signs. Chapter 1 closes its long polemic against Vedic authority by turning on the Naiyāyika directly:

།རིག་བྱེད་ཚད་མ་དང་ནི་འགའ་བྱེད་སྨྲ། །ཁྲུས་ལས་ཆོས་འདོད་དང་ནི་རིགས་སྨྲས་དྲེགས། །སྡིག་པ་གཞོམ་ཕྱིར་གདུང་བ་རྩོམ་ཞེས་པ། །བླུན་པོ་ཤེས་རབ་འཆལ་བའི་རྟགས་ལྔ་ཡིན།

Holding the Vedas to be a valid authority; propounding that some [permanent beings] can act; seeking Dharma through [ritual] washing; the arrogant proclaiming of [their] caste; and undertaking [bodily] torment to destroy wrongdoing—these are the five signs of the foolish, of corrupted discernment. (pramanavartika I.340)

Gorampa glosses each: the Vedas teach a variety of inner contradictions; a permanent thing cannot perform an action; washing the body does not purify the mind of accumulated wrongdoing (gorampa-pramanavartika, on PV I.340). The verse is a coda to the refutation of Vedic authority, whose principal target through PV I.224–339 is the Mīmāṃsā, and it registers that the Naiyāyika shares the commitment without sharing the theory of language that supports it.

Two loci where our material declines to name Nyāya. At PV I.194–196 the opponent holds that a pot’s destruction depends on a later external cause such as a hammer, against momentary disintegration; the standard doxography assigns this to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, but Gorampa names no school, and the chapter-1 attribution map in translations/pramanavartika/translation-notes.md leaves it unspecified. At PV II.263 the ritualist opponent borrows the Vaiśeṣika–Nyāya doctrine of the unseen (adṛṣṭa, མ་མཐོང་བ་)—merit and demerit as a quality of the self—to argue that karma rather than volition drives rebirth; Gorampa names the speaker only as the Īśvara-proponent.

Sakya Paṇḍita

The twenty-two points of defeat. Chapter 11 of the pramanayuktanidhi treats defeat in debate. Sakya Paṇḍita’s own account has four points of defeat, two per party:

།ཚར་གཅད་གཉིས་ལས་ཕྱེ་བའི་བཞི། །རིགས་པ་མཁྱེན་པའི་དགོངས་པ་ཡིན།

The four, divided out from the two [parties’] kinds of defeat, are the intent of those who know reasoning. (pramanayuktanidhi chapter 11)

The proponent (རྒོལ་བ་) may state what is not a member of proof, or fail to state a member; the opponent (ཕྱིར་རྒོལ་) may state a non-fault, or fail to state the fault. He then takes the two rival schemes in turn—the Snowland masters’ sixteen, and Akṣapāda’s twenty-two—and reduces both.

The root verse lists the twenty-two in brief and closes:

ཐུབ་པ་རྐང་མིག་གིས་བཤད་པའི། །ཚར་གཅད་ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་གཉིས་ཡིན། །དེ་ལ་དཔལ་ལྡན་གྲགས་པ་ཡིས། །འགའ་ཞིག་ཚར་གཅད་མིན་པར་བཤད། །ཚར་གཅད་ཡིན་ན་གཉིས་པོར་སྡུད།

These are the twenty-two points of defeat declared by the sage Akṣapāda (རྐང་མིག, “Foot-Eye”, i.e. Gautama). Of these, the glorious Dharmakīrti explained that some are not [genuine] points of defeat, and that those which are reduce to the two [for each party]. (pramanayuktanidhi chapter 11)

One move is repeated through all twenty-two: whatever Akṣapāda isolates as its own kind of defeat is either no fault at all, or else an instance of an inconclusive reason—in which case it is already covered. Destruction of the thesis, where the opponent turns the proponent’s reason round to prove the contrary, only raises a doubt, and a doubt shows the reason extends to both classes: inconclusive. Abandoning the thesis, where a cornered proponent denies having said what he said, shows only that he never ascertained the reason free of doubt, and the commentary adds that the opponent shares the blame for not saying “not necessarily” the moment the reason was uttered (sodargye-pramanayuktanidhi, on chapter 11). Departing from the tenet, whose Nyāya illustration is the Sāṃkhya holding both that the existent does not perish and that things arise from and dissolve into the universal principle, is self-contradiction, which is stating a non-proof.

Several are simply not faults. The unintelligible is the proponent’s fault when he gabbles or uses an unheard-of diction, but if he states the argument in good order and repeats it two or three times, the failure to understand is the opponent’s. The inopportune is a mere reversal of word order: “the golden yellow pot” and “the yellow golden pot” convey the same content, and nothing has gone wrong. Verbal repetition is no fault and is sometimes needed. Failure to echo the proponent’s words back before questioning is no fault either, since no such teacher-and-pupil recitation was ever agreed. Evasion by pleading illness is no defeat if the illness is real—“laying a charge on a genuinely sick man is unreasonable”.

Two of the replies bear on doctrine rather than procedure. Deficiency: Akṣapāda, joined here by the Indian earlier epistemologists headed by Vasubandhu, holds that any of the five members missing makes the proof defective. Sakya Paṇḍita answers that only two members are required, the reason and the example, since without those the argument’s meaning cannot be grasped; thesis, application and conclusion are superfluous, so their absence cannot be a defeat. The ground is the definition given in chapter 10: once the subject-property is established and the connection is fixed, that is a complete reason, and nothing further needs saying. Gedun Drub’s commentary on PV IV shows Dharmakīrti making the same case at length against the claim that the thesis-statement is a limb of proof-speech. Excess: adding a second reason or a second example is indeed a fault in a tight system, but it falls under stating a non-proof—and, Sakya Paṇḍita observes, a school that insists on five members where none of the extra ones are needed has no standing to complain of padding.

The scheme fails on principle as well as in detail: since every person in the world speaks differently, defeats classified by their surface form would run into the tens of thousands and twenty-two would never suffice. What can be subsumed should be subsumed within its kind (pramanayuktanidhi chapter 11, with sodargye-pramanayuktanidhi).

The chapter also treats the twenty-four futile rejoinders—fourteen from the pramanasamuccaya and ten from the Nyāyamukha—but only in outline, on the ground that Dignāga refuted them from every angle and Dharmakīrti let them stand. The sample refutation is the contact/non-contact dilemma: asked whether reason and probandum are in contact or not, since contact would merge them and non-contact leave them unrelated, the answer is that proof and refutation between reason and thesis proceed by exclusion, so the dilemma never engages.

The colophon. Akṣapāda is named among the seven opponents the treatise was written against—Kapila, Akṣapāda (རྐང་མིག་པ་), the Owl’s Son, the Sky-Clad, the Cārvāka, the Vedic reciters, and the proponents dwelling amid the snow mountains (pramanayuktanidhi chapter 11, colophon).

A caution about chapter 9. The pramanayuktanidhi chapter on perception lists four rival accounts of valid cognition and its result, of which the second is “contact and cognising the object”—the faculty’s contact with the object is the valid cognition, and the cognition produced after they meet is the result. The doctrine is the Nyāya definition refuted in PS I, and the two commentaries disagree about who holds it. The auto-commentary assigns the scheme to the Naiyāyikas, and our translation follows it (translations/pramanayuktanidhi/translation-notes.md, chapter 9: “the school-identifications are bracketed from source 3”). Khenpo Sodargye’s lectures instead name the Vaidikas, the Vedic ritualists, at that point, while giving the same fault from the auto-commentary—if faculty and object contact directly, then since a form possesses the eight subtle particles, colour, smell, taste and touch would all be experienced through the eye (sodargye-pramanayuktanidhi, on chapter 9). The divergence between the two attributions is unresolved.

What the debate turns on

Every thread here descends from one Nyāya commitment: that the articulations we find in language are articulations of the world. Whatever is, is knowable and nameable—so if we speak of a cloth as one thing, there is one thing; if we call many animals cows, there is a cowness; if we say a cognition settles what it sees, then seeing settles. Dharmakīrti’s counter-principle is that reality is what makes a difference, and a difference has to be locatable: real things are determinate in space, in time, and in their own entity, and none of the three tests is passed by a universal that was present elsewhere, did not move from its place, and yet is found in what originates somewhere else (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, pp. 69–70).

The same disagreement produces the logical quarrel. If the world already comes divided into substances bearing properties, then a reason can rest on inherence or conjunction between two real relata, and the absence of counter-instances is evidence enough. If it does not, then nothing links reason to probandum except identity of nature or causation, and the mere failure to find a counter-instance is a cause of doubt rather than a proof—which is exactly why the Naiyāyika’s life-force reason and the Buddhist’s own too-hasty use of non-observation fall together at pramanavartika I.13–I.19 (see can-inference-be-valid).

What none of this displaces is the vocabulary. Thesis, reason, example, application, conclusion, the fallacious reason, the point of defeat, the futile rejoinder: the terms are Akṣapāda’s, and the Buddhist epistemologists took the apparatus of Indian debate from the school whose ontology they were using it to refute. The residue is visible in our own material. pramanayuktanidhi chapter 11 argues at length that Akṣapāda’s twenty-two points of defeat are superfluous, then walks the student through his twenty-four futile rejoinders anyway, on the stated ground that without them the earlier positions in the great treatises remain obscure.

One further gap should be recorded. The heaviest Dharmakīrti material against the Nyāya sits in pramanavartika III and IV, and those chapters are not yet translated in this vault; the arguments above are reconstructed from Gedun Drub’s commentary, which carries no verse numbers for them, so none of the PV III–IV loci here can be cited by verse.

Graph View

Backlinks