---
type: Concept
bundle: nyaya-vaisheshika
bundle_version: 0.9.0
id: shodasha-padartha
title: Ṣoḍaśa-padārtha
iast: Ṣoḍaśa-padārtha
devanagari: षोडश पदार्थ
description: The sixteen categories that organize Nyāya as a system, from pramāṇa and prameya through the debate terms to nigrahasthāna; the architecture of the school of reasoning; NOT Vaiśeṣika's seven ontological padārthas, NOT a metaphysics of what exists, NOT an arbitrary list.
darshana:
- Nyāya
school_scope: '''Padārtha'' means one thing in Nyāya (a topic or category of the science of reasoning) and another in Vaiśeṣika (a category of being). The sixteen here are epistemic and dialectical; the seven of saptapadārtha are ontological. Same word, two frameworks; the shared Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika school holds both without conflating them.'
text_source: Nyāya Sūtra 1.1.1
tags:
- shodasha-padartha
- sixteen-categories
- nyaya
- framework
- padartha
not:
- term: Vaiśeṣika's seven ontological categories
  why: Vaiśeṣika's seven padārthas classify what exists (substance, quality, motion, and so on). Nyāya's sixteen classify the elements of reasoned inquiry and debate (means of knowledge, objects, doubt, purpose, example, and the rest). One is an ontology, the other a methodology; the identical word 'padārtha' names two different projects.
  instead: 'Present the sixteen as the syllabus of the science of reasoning: pramāṇa, prameya, saṃśaya, prayojana, dṛṣṭānta, siddhānta, avayava, tarka, nirṇaya, vāda, jalpa, vitaṇḍā, hetvābhāsa, chala, jāti, nigrahasthāna.'
- term: a catalogue of the kinds of things that exist
  why: The sixteen are not an inventory of reality's furniture. Most of them, doubt, purpose, the three debate types, the points of defeat, are features of inquiry and disputation, not entities. Reading them as an ontology mistakes a manual of method for a map of being.
- term: an arbitrary or unordered list
  why: 'The sixteen have a logic: the first nine cover valid inquiry (from the means of knowledge to settled conclusion), and the last seven cover debate and its pathologies. It is a deliberately structured curriculum, not a miscellany.'
related:
- /concepts/pramana.md
- /concepts/vada.md
- /concepts/tarka.md
- /concepts/saptapadartha.md
timestamp: '2026-07-02'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Ṣoḍaśa-padārtha -- षोडश पदार्थ

**Not:** the seven categories, an ontology, an arbitrary list

## What It Actually Means

The very first sūtra of the Nyāya Sūtra lists sixteen categories (padārthas) whose true knowledge, it says, leads to the highest good. They are the organizing frame of the whole system: pramāṇa (means of valid knowledge), prameya (objects of knowledge), saṃśaya (doubt), prayojana (purpose), dṛṣṭānta (example), siddhānta (settled tenet), avayava (the members of inference), tarka (suppositional reasoning), nirṇaya (ascertainment), and then the six dialectical items, vāda, jalpa, vitaṇḍā (the three modes of debate), hetvābhāsa (pseudo-reasons), chala (quibbling), jāti (futile rejoinders), and nigrahasthāna (points of defeat). The first nine constitute inquiry proper; the last seven govern debate and its failures. The list is Nyāya's self-portrait as a discipline: not a theory of what there is, but a theory of how to know and how to argue. This is exactly why it must be held apart from Vaiśeṣika's seven categories of being, though the two schools share a lineage and a word.

## Audience Metaphor

A carpentry course has two very different first pages: one lists the kinds of wood and joint that exist, the other lists the skills, use the square, test the fit, spot a warped board, settle a dispute over a measurement. Vaiśeṣika's seven are the first page; Nyāya's sixteen are the second. Both say 'padārtha' at the top, and confusing the syllabus of skills for the inventory of materials misreads the whole course.

## Citations

1. Nyāya Sūtra 1.1.1 (the enumeration of sixteen) -- see [references/nyaya-sutra.md](../references/nyaya-sutra.md)
2. Vātsyāyana, Nyāya Bhāṣya, on the sixteen and their order -- see [references/nyaya-bhashya.md](../references/nyaya-bhashya.md)
3. Cross-category: saptapadartha.md (this bundle) -- the Vaiśeṣika seven, deliberately distinct
