WE begin with the Nyāya of Gotama or Gautama, with its supplement, the Vaiśeshika, not because this is first in order of time (see p. 48), but because it is generally the first studied, and much of its terminology is adopted by the other systems.

The word Nyāya signifies ‘going into a subject,’ that is, investigating it analytically. In this sense of ‘analysis,’ Nyāya is exactly opposed to the word Sankhyā, ‘synthesis.’ It is common to suppose that the Nyāya is chiefly concerned with logic; but this is merely one part of a single topic. The fact rather is that this system was intended to furnish a correct method of philosophical inquiry into all the objects and subjects of human knowledge, including, amongst others, the process of reasoning and laws of thought. The Nyāya proper differs from its later development, the Vaiśeshika, by propounding sixteen topics in its first Sūtra. The first topic of these sixteen is Pramāṉa, that is, the means or instruments by which Pramā, or the right measure of any subject is to be obtained. Under this head are enunciated the different processes by which the mind arrives at true and accurate knowledge.

These processes are declared in the third Sūtra of the first book to be four, viz.

The treatment of the second of these, viz. inference, possesses more interest for Europeans, as indicating that the Hindūs have not, like other nations, borrowed their logic and metaphysics from the Greeks.