School · 100–1700 CE
Nyāya
Nyāya develops a realist account of knowledge through perception, inference, comparison, and testimony. Its commentators tested rival Buddhist, Mīmāṃsā, and Vedānta accounts of error, language, selves, and God, later joining closely with Vaiśeṣika analysis.
Shared questions
- Which instruments of knowledge reliably establish objects, selves, and causal relations?
- What makes an inference and its universal connection rationally secure?
Internal disagreements
- Nyāya’s realism and its account of testimony were contested by Buddhist epistemologists and by other Brahmanical schools.
Key texts
- Nyāya Sūtra · c. second century CE — Aphoristic foundation conventionally attributed to Akṣapāda Gautama.
- Nyāya Bhāṣya · c. fourth–fifth century CE — Vātsyāyana’s foundational commentary frames later Nyāya debates.