ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the pramāṇas, the conceptions of the self, bondage, and liberation, in the chapter on Nyāya and primarily focus on the ontological categories, i.e., padārthas. Padārthas are "categories" of the Vaiśeṣika school. There are six kinds of positive realities and one negative padārtha. Thus, the Vaiśeṣika list (which appears to have evolved slowly) has seven categories: Dravya (substance), guṇa (quality), karma (action), sāmānya (universal), viśeṣa (particularity), samavāya (inherence), and abhāva (negation). "Dravya" is usually translated as "substance." The Vaiśeṣiikas consider the "gu?as" to be qualities, which do not exist independently of a substance in which they inhere. The next category is karma or action. For the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas, universals, variously called "sāmānya" or "jāti," are entities which though one and eternal inhere in many. Viśeṣa is an entity, again a real entity, which accounts for this ultimate distinctness of individuals. The Naiyāyikas maintain that negation (abhāva) is always of a real negation in a real locus.
