Learning from India's Nyāya Rhetoric: Debating Analogically through Vāda's Fruitful Dialogue

Abstract

Over 2,500 years, philosophers in India refined a truth-centered and rhetorically egalitarian method of analogical debate: Nyāya vāda, and its five-part expression, the “Nyāya method.” According to Indian tradition, its practices emerged in the context of inter-scholar debates. However, most historical examples of Indian debate occur in mythical/religious dialogues between teacher and student, and currently Nyāya's scholars focus on theory, neglecting social practice. While Indologists describe the “what” of Nyāya, their bias toward theory leaves its conversational uses unexplored. Comparative rhetoricians describe Indian rhetoric with Greek terminologies as points of reference, and miss Nyāya's theoretical and practical debate tradition. This essay addresses this lack of social context and paucity of representation of Nyāya. It shows how informal debates in ancient literary/historical dialogues presage Nyāya's formulation and traces Nyāya's use in contemporary public examples, illustrating its rhetorical journey from discussions of scholars and kings, to academic formulization, to popular dialogic expression. Nyāya offers a clear alternative to Western confrontational rhetoric, and the presence of Indian “rhetorical” practice and theory undermines assumptions about “rhetoric” being uniquely Greek in origin, underscoring the need for comparative rhetorics.

Notes

¹For details on the Sūtra's authorship, see Vidyābhūsana (Gotama 17–21; 26) and Bhattacharyya (6, 10). The version of the Nyāya Sūtra (NS) used here credits Gotama as author; his short aphorisms outlining Nyāaya theory and practices are identified by chapter, section, and verse. Vātsyāyana's later commentaries appear with the original, and have essentially become part of the text. Vidyābhūsana edited the Gotama/Vātsyāyana version in 1930, and Sinha edited it in 1990. Vātsyāyana and Vidyābhūsana are quoted by page number.

²The sixteen awarenesses, or pardatha (“objects that can be thought,” artha, and “named,” pada) are as follows (Vātsyāyana's translations): Because this essay concerns only positive discussion, it focuses on 1– 12. (1) pramāna: the means of right knowledge; (2) prameya: the object of right knowledge; (3) samśaya: doubt; (4) prayogena: purpose; (5) drstānta: example; (6) siddhanta: tenet; (7) avayava: members; (8) tarka: confutation; (9) nirnaya: ascertainment; (10) vāda: discussion; (11) jalpa: wrangling; (12) vitandā: cavil; (13) hetvābhāsa: fallacy; (14) chala: quibble; (15) jāti: false analogue (“futile objections”)—literally, belonging to a different class; (16) nigrah- āsthāna: the point of defeat.

³Note that the generalization “Whatever … ” is here used to support the drstānta, not as the basis for the claim and reason directly. See footnote 4.

⁴Buddhist philosopher Dignāga (480–540 CE) in his work Nyāya Mutka identified the first three elements as argument for self and all five as argument for others. He also added vyāpti, identifying the necessary relation between the sādhya (smoke) and the hetu (fire). This relation, “Where there is smoke there is fire” is not equivalent to Aristotle's first premise because it justifies the application of the drstānta (Lloyd, “Rethinking” 371). Dignāga embodies the egalitarian tradition, resisting Nyāya epistemology but using its methods; his concepts became a part of Nyāya methodologies.

⁵Since they exhibit rhetoric in action, the informal arguments excerpted in this essay probably would not pass stringent tests of formal validity developed over time by Naiyanikas.

⁶ Nyāya's impact continues in other ways. In 2007, G. S. Majalakshmi and T. V. Geetha offered a “Knowledge Sharing” computational model drawn exactly on Nyāya vāda: “winning and losing are not important” as a “proponent's arguments explain one's thoughts and belief to the opponent”; dialogue continues until “the participant(s) is convinced about the shared knowledge” (77).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Keith Lloyd

Keith Lloyd is Associate Professor of English at Kent State University Stark, 6000 Frank Ave., NW, North Canton, OH 44720, USA.