About Nyaya Sutra

Nyaya Sutras are considered as ancient Indian texts of the Classical Indian philosophy. These Nyaya Sutras were probably composed by Aksapada Gautama in 2nd century AD. The sutras comprise five chapters, each having two sections. The core point of Nyaya sutras dates back to nearly 2nd century AD, however significant later insertions were made. Nyaya Sutra is sometimes known as Tarka-Vidya, meaning the Science of Debate, Vada-Vidya, meaning Science of Discussion. One of the special features of Nyaya Sutras is Tarka. Thus, most of the categories and features of these texts are better understood from this perspective. Aksapada Gautama is sometimes given the religious titles such as `Rishi` or `Maharshi`. There are four principal topics of Nyaya sutras namely art of debate, syllogism, means of valid knowledge and examination of different views.

The work of Nyaya Sutras begins with an instruction of the subject matter, purpose, and the connection of the subject matter in accomplishment of the said purpose. These texts also mention that the ultimate purpose is salvation, which means complete freedom from pain. It is attained by knowledge of 16 categories and these are -

* Means of valid knowledge (pramana);
* Objects of valid knowledge (prameya);
* Doubt (samshaya);
* Purpose (prayojana);
* Example (dristanta);
* Conclusion (siddhanta);
* The constituents of a syllogism (avayava);
* Argumentation (tarka);
* Ascertainment (nirnaya);
* Debate (vada);
* Disputations (jalpa);
* Destructive criticism (vitanda);
* Fallacy (hetvabhasa);
* Quibble (chala);
* Refutations (jati); and
*Points of the opponent`s defeat (nigrahasthana)
In the Nyaya Sutras, Aksapada Gautama proposes that a person can attain liberation by contradicting both unhappiness and illusion. He further states that by consecutively dispersing bad character, false conceptions, entangling action, and misery one can attain final liberation. However, the Nyaya philosophers are of the opinion that awareness is not a vital quality of the soul. They teach that a released soul has no consciousness. Thus, the Nyaya idea of release of the soul puts it in the condition of a dead stone. This attempt of the philosophers of Nyaya Sutras to kill the soul`s natural consciousness is called `sato mrtim` by personified Vedas. Further, the Nyaya Sutras mention that there are four ways of achieving valid knowledge and these are inference, comparison, perception, and verbal testimony.

Nyaya Sutra states that it is by understanding the nature or reasoned inquiry, epistemology and debating theory that one attains the highest goal. Nyaya Sutra amplifies the point, citing an exact sequence of causal relations between knowledge and liberation.

Perception in Nyaya Sutra

Perception in Nyaya Sutra is an awareness that stands in a special relation to its object. This relation is defined in purely non-cognitive terms. Further, it is also described in Nyaya Sutras that perception is a physical anchor between the subject and the external world. It is not itself cognitive; rather it supplies the raw material for knowledge and so for reason. Perception in Nyaya Sutra is considered as a rational activity. According to Buddhist philosophy, one does not perceive the object at all, but only patterns of colour, sound, touchy smell and taste. From their sequence in time and arrangement in space, one infers the presence of an object of one kind or another. Reason here is a mental faculty of construction, synthesis and super-imposition. It brings order to the array of sensory data.

The early Naiyayika, however, has tied reason to explicit demonstration and proof. Since there is no logical relationship between the capacity to see an object and the capacity to describe it, one is led instead to the idea that objects enter directly into the content of perceptual experience. The Naiyayika also describes that if reason has a role in the construction or synthesis of the objects of perception, then realism about those objects is threatened. However, it is also believed that reason can have a role in the organisation of the totality of one`s perceptions. According to Nyaya Sutras, thought as judgement is either the perception of a passive unity of different data in substantive-adjective relation, or, going beyond perception, conscious management of data through actual use of language.

There are certain constraints on the physical relation that obtains between a perceiver`s perceptions and the object perceived. A first constraint is just that the relation be physical, so that it is not explicated in terms of semantic relations such as that of denotation. This is what is meant by the assertion that perception is `non-verbal`. Second, the relation has to have the right expansion and it needs to hold between perceptions and the sorts of object one is normally regarded as capable of perceiving. Moreover, Nyaya Sutra also attempts to give a physical description of perception. Vatsyayana points to cases of perceptual delusion and perceptual confusion. Perceiving with the eyes an object at a distance, a person cannot settle on whether it is smoke or dust. Such an indecisive awareness resulting from sense-object contact might be mistaken as perceptual at times. Buddhist objections to the Nyaya definition focus on instances where perception does seem to imply belief and inference. The Buddhist presses the Naiyayika on the point that there is, in perception, an inference and interpretation of what is immediately given.

Rationality in Nyaya Sutra

Rationality in Nyaya Sutra deals with such themes as the procedures for properly conducting debates, the nature of good argument, and the analysis of perception, inference and testimony in so far as they are sources of knowledge. There is a detailed account of the causal structure of the mind and the nature of its operation. Certain metaphysical questions are addressed, notably the reality of wholes, atoms and universals. At the beginning of his commentary on this remarkable work Vatsyayana Paksilasvamin (400 AD) wonders what it is that makes the Nyaya system distinctive. He states "Nyaya is the examination of things with the help of methods of knowing (pramana). It is and inference supported by observation and authority. This is called a critical proof (anviksa). A critical proof is the proof of things desired, supported by observation and authority. The discipline of critical inquiry is the one which pertains to it, and is also called the science of Nyaya or the writings on nyaya.

Vatsyayana agrees with Kautilya that the study of critical inquiry is one of the four branches of study, but he insists that it has its own procedures or methodology. He claims that if critical inquiry did not have its own procedures then it would merely be a study of the soul`s progress, like an Upanishad. Reasoned inquiry and scriptural studies are claimed to have the same eventual goal or purpose; where they differ is in method. That marks a departure from Kautilya`s purely instrumental conception of rationality, in which the use of reason could equally well serve any end. Vatsyayana claims that there can be rational goals, as well as rational means, and so to distance the Nyaya system from the free-thinkers in the epics.

According to Vatsyayana, reason can be used in one of the three ways. One may employ it in a good and proper way, as one does when one`s goal is to ascertain the truth of the matter. One may employ it in a bad or improper way, as when one`s goal is to defend one`s position at all costs, using any intellectual tricks one can think of. Finally, one might employ reason in a negative and destructive way. Here one has no goal other than to undermine one`s opponent. He further claims indeed that to use reason in this way is virtually self-defeating. Vatsyayana`s point is that someone who presents an argument against a thesis has at least that refutation as their goal, and so commits himself to the machinery of critical examination. He also states that the aimless use of reason is not just pernicious, rather it is self-defeating.

The salient point here is that reason must have a purpose, and the question is what that purpose should be. Vatsyayana argues that a goal is a rational one if it is the rational means to some further goal. And he claims that whatever one`s eventual goal is the rational way to achieve it is through the acquisition of knowledge that is knowledge about one`s goal and how it might be achieved. So the acquisition of knowledge is always a rational goal. Indeed it is the rational goal par excellence, for knowledge is instrumental in the rational pursuit of any other goal.

Since there is success in one`s activities when the awareness of one`s object is produced by an accredited method of knowing, the method of knowing is connected with the object. Without a method of knowing, there is no awareness of the object. Without an awareness of the object, there is no success in one`s activities. But the knower, having grasped the object in thought by some suitable method, either desires it or wants to avoid it. Success is the coming together of that activity with its reward. Desiring the object, or wanting to avoid it, one either makes an effort to obtain it or else to avoid it. One`s object is the satisfaction one feels and the cause of that contentment, or the disdain and the cause of that disdain.

Kautilya said that the study of critical inquiry is the study of the notion of investigating with reasons. The highest goal in life is reached through knowledge about the nature of knowable, methods of knowing, doubt, purpose, observational data, and doctrinal bases, the parts of a demonstration, suppositional reasoning, final decision, truth-directed debate, victory-directed debate, destructive debate, sophistic rejoinders, tricks, false reasons, and defeat situations. This philosophical text also mentions that an inquiry must have a purpose. The assumption is that any form of rational behaviour must have some motivating purpose, the point for which one wishes to resolve the doubt. While it is plausible that there is a dependency between the degree of success or failure of one`s plans and the extent of falsity in one`s beliefs, it is less easy to see that the dependency is mediated by the moral value of one`s actions.