---
type: Reference
bundle: nyaya-vaisheshika
bundle_version: 0.9.0
id: nyaya-sutra
title: Nyāya Sūtra
description: The foundational sūtra text of the Nyāya school (Gautama / Akṣapāda), five books setting out the sixteen categories, the four pramāṇas, the theory of inference and debate, and the path to liberation through true knowledge.
tags:
- reference
- nyaya-sutra
- gautama
- primary-text
timestamp: '2026-07-02'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Nyāya Sūtra

The Nyāya Sūtra, attributed to Gautama (also called Akṣapāda), is the root text of the Nyāya darśana, conventionally dated to the early centuries CE with older layers. Its five adhyāyas open with the sixteen categories (1.1.1) whose true knowledge is said to lead to the highest good, then develop the four pramāṇas (perception, inference, comparison, testimony), the five-membered inference and its members (1.1.32-39), the pseudo-reasons (1.2.4-9), the three modes of debate (1.2.1-3), the nature and inference of the self, the theory of error (4.2), and the points of defeat (5.2). It is the source that this bundle's inference-and-debate apparatus is anchored to, and the primary object of the great commentaries by Vātsyāyana, Uddyotakara, and Vācaspati Miśra.
