---
type: Concept
bundle: nyaya-vaisheshika
bundle_version: 0.9.0
id: saptapadartha
title: Saptapadārtha
iast: Saptapadārtha
devanagari: सप्त पदार्थ
description: The seven categories of Vaiśeṣika ontology (dravya, guṇa, karma, sāmānya, viśeṣa, samavāya, abhāva); an exhaustive realist inventory of the kinds of the knowable; NOT Nyāya's sixteen epistemic-dialectical categories, NOT the Sāṃkhya twenty-five evolutes, NOT a list of substances only.
darshana:
- Vaiśeṣika
school_scope: 'Vaiśeṣika is a realist, pluralist ontology: the world is many real things of distinct categorial kinds. This is the sharpest contrast with the Sāṃkhya evolute-model (25 tattvas from one prakṛti) and with Advaita monism. The seven are categories of BEING; Nyāya''s sixteen are categories of INQUIRY. Same word ''padārtha'', two projects.'
text_source: Vaiśeṣika Sūtra 1.1.4; Praśastapāda, Padārthadharmasaṃgraha
tags:
- saptapadartha
- seven-categories
- vaisheshika
- ontology
- realism
not:
- term: Nyāya's sixteen categories of inquiry
  why: Nyāya's sixteen classify the elements of knowing and debating; Vaiśeṣika's seven classify the kinds of things there are. The two lists belong to the paired schools but answer different questions, one methodological, one ontological. The shared word 'padārtha' is the trap.
  instead: 'Present the seven as an ontology of the knowable: dravya (substance), guṇa (quality), karma (motion), sāmānya (universal), viśeṣa (ultimate particular), samavāya (inherence), and abhāva (absence); the first six positive, the seventh negative and added later.'
- term: the Sāṃkhya twenty-five tattvas
  why: Sāṃkhya derives the world by evolution from a single root-nature (prakṛti) plus plural selves; its 25 tattvas are stages of an unfolding. Vaiśeṣika's seven are not stages of anything, they are eternal categorial kinds of a world that is many-from-the-start. Pluralism-of-kinds versus evolute-emanation is the deep difference.
- term: a catalogue of substances only
  why: Substance (dravya) is just the first of seven. Qualities, motions, universals, ultimate particulars, inherence, and absence are equally real padārthas in their own right. Reducing the scheme to a list of stuffs drops most of the ontology, including the relations and the universals.
related:
- /concepts/dravya.md
- /concepts/guna.md
- /concepts/karma.md
- /concepts/samanya-vishesha.md
- /concepts/samavaya.md
- /concepts/shodasha-padartha.md
timestamp: '2026-07-02'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Saptapadārtha -- सप्त पदार्थ

**Not:** the sixteen categories, the Samkhya tattvas, substances only

## What It Actually Means

Saptapadārtha is the categorial framework of Vaiśeṣika: everything knowable falls under seven padārthas (categories of being). Six are positive, dravya (substance), guṇa (quality), karma (motion or action), sāmānya (universal), viśeṣa (ultimate particularity), and samavāya (inherence), and a seventh, abhāva (absence or non-existence), was added later, as Vaiśeṣika grew more epistemological, to account for our genuine knowledge of what is not there. The scheme is thoroughly realist and pluralist: substances, their qualities and motions, the universals they instantiate, the ultimate particulars that individuate the eternal ones, the inherence-relation that binds inseparables, and even absences are all real constituents of an independently existing world. This is the ontology that Nyāya inference operates over, and it is the great indigenous alternative to both Sāṃkhya's derivation of the world from a single root-nature and Advaita's reduction of plurality to appearance. Where those trace the many back to one, Vaiśeṣika begins and ends with an ordered many.

## Audience Metaphor

Some worldviews are a smoothie: everything blended back into one substance, with apparent variety just swirl. Vaiśeṣika is a periodic table plus a grammar: distinct kinds (things, qualities, motions, universals, particulars, the glue that binds them, and even the gaps), each real, each irreducible, arranged in a finite set of categories. The world is not one stuff pretending to be many; it is genuinely many, and the seven padārthas are the column headings.

## Citations

1. Vaiśeṣika Sūtra 1.1.4 -- see [references/vaisheshika-sutra.md](../references/vaisheshika-sutra.md)
2. Praśastapāda, Padārthadharmasaṃgraha (the classic exposition; abhāva added) -- see [references/padarthadharmasamgraha.md](../references/padarthadharmasamgraha.md)
3. Śivāditya, Saptapadārthī (a standard primer on the seven) -- see [references/saptapadarthi.md](../references/saptapadarthi.md)
