---
type: Concept
bundle: nyaya-vaisheshika
bundle_version: 0.9.0
id: vitanda
title: Vitaṇḍā
iast: Vitaṇḍā
devanagari: वितण्डा
description: Destructive, purely refutative debate that attacks and demolishes the opponent's thesis while advancing no counter-thesis of its own; the most eristic of the three modes; NOT skeptical philosophical method, NOT vāda, NOT constructive criticism.
darshana:
- Nyāya
text_source: Nyāya Sūtra 1.2.3
tags:
- vitanda
- refutation
- debate
- nyaya
- dialectic
not:
- term: principled skepticism or a method of doubt
  why: A skeptic may deny that knowledge is possible as a considered position. The vitaṇḍā-debater takes no position at all; the entire activity is to refute the opponent while committing to nothing that could itself be refuted. It is a tactic within debate, not a philosophical stance about knowledge.
  instead: 'Define vitaṇḍā as pure refutation: the debater only demolishes the other''s thesis and never states or defends a counter-thesis, precisely so as to present no target of their own.'
- term: honest truth-seeking debate
  why: Vāda requires each party to hold and defend a thesis with valid means and to seek the truth. Vitaṇḍā refuses both, no thesis, no shared goal of truth, which is why Nyāya rates it the lowest and most eristic of the three modes.
- term: constructive criticism
  why: Constructive criticism aims to improve a view or replace it with a better one. Vitaṇḍā aims only to leave the opponent's view in ruins, offering nothing in its place; its whole strategic point is to hold no position that could be attacked in turn.
related:
- /concepts/vada.md
- /concepts/jalpa.md
- /concepts/nigrahasthana.md
- /concepts/hetvabhasa.md
timestamp: '2026-07-02'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Vitaṇḍā -- वितण्डा

**Not:** principled skepticism, truth-seeking debate, constructive criticism

## What It Actually Means

Vitaṇḍā is the third and most destructive mode of debate: refutation without a counter-position. The vitaṇḍā-debater sets out only to demolish the opponent's thesis and pointedly declines to advance any thesis of their own, since holding one would expose them to counter-attack. Nyāya identifies this as a recognisable and low form of disputation, cavil, and lists the moves that expose it. The concept matters for two reasons. First, it completes Nyāya's spectrum of debate, from cooperative truth-seeking (vāda), through competitive victory-seeking (jalpa), to pure destruction (vitaṇḍā), a strikingly clear-eyed taxonomy of what people actually do when they argue. Second, it is often mistranslated as 'skepticism' or 'critical method', which flatters it; in Nyāya it is precisely the refusal to be pinned to any commitment, a diagnosable dialectical strategy rather than a respectable epistemological position.

## Audience Metaphor

Picture a debater who only ever plays defense-by-demolition: they knock down whatever you build and never put up a structure of their own, because a structure could be knocked down too. That is vitaṇḍā, all wrecking ball, no blueprint. It can look like fearless critique, but the tradition sees the trick: you cannot lose an argument if you are careful never to actually claim anything.

## Citations

1. Nyāya Sūtra 1.2.3 (definition of vitaṇḍā) -- see [references/nyaya-sutra.md](../references/nyaya-sutra.md)
2. Vātsyāyana, Nyāya Bhāṣya, on the three modes contrasted -- see [references/nyaya-bhashya.md](../references/nyaya-bhashya.md)
3. Jayanta Bhaṭṭa, Nyāyamañjarī -- see [references/nyayamanjari.md](../references/nyayamanjari.md)
