ABSTRACT
In Nyaya, the analysis of knowledge is taken up in terms of the knowing subject, the object to be known, the known object, and the means of coming to know the object. According to Nyaya, the main characteristic of knowledge is that it illumines and reveals what exists. Perceptual knowledge is defined as the true and determinate knowledge arising from the contact of the senses with their proper objects. Although perception is the basic kind of knowledge, there are three other means of knowledge recognized by Nyaya. Inference is regarded as an independent means of valid knowledge that is defined in the Nyaya Sutra as producing "a knowledge that comes after other knowledge". If one consider the kinds of things that exist and that can become objects of knowledge from the viewpoint of their own independent existence, they come up with the categories of Vaisheshika system. These categories are substance, quality, motion, generality, particularity, inherence, and nonexistence.
