Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika: How Anyone Knows Anything

Lesson 47 left a system asserting that twenty-five things exist. This lesson is about the two schools that made the question of warrant their subject.

Nyāyasūtra 1.1.3 named them: pratyakṣānumānopamāna-śabdāḥ pramāṇāni. The next four sūtras define each.

Perception. indriyārtha-sannikarṣotpannam jñānam avyapadeśyam avyabhicāri vyavasāyātmakam pratyakṣam — knowledge arising from the contact of sense and object, not nameable, not erratic, and determinate (1.1.4). Three qualifications, each excluding a failure: the pre-verbal moment, the misperception, and the merely hazy.

Inference. atha tat-pūrvakaṃ trividham anumānam — inference is "preceded by that", i.e. by perception, and is of three kinds (1.1.5). Inference is not independent of seeing; it runs from something seen.