---
type: Reference
bundle: nyaya-vaisheshika
bundle_version: 0.9.0
id: nyayavarttika
title: Nyāyavārttika (Uddyotakara)
description: Uddyotakara's sub-commentary defending Nyāya realism, especially the five-membered inference and the enduring self, against Buddhist logico-epistemology.
tags:
- reference
- nyayavarttika
- uddyotakara
- commentary
timestamp: '2026-07-02'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Nyāyavārttika (Uddyotakara)

The Nyāyavārttika of Uddyotakara (c. 6th-7th century CE) is a vārttika (critical gloss) on Vātsyāyana's Bhāṣya, written largely to rebut the Buddhist logicians Dignāga and Dharmakīrti. It defends the five-membered form of inference against the Buddhist two-membered reduction, sharpens the conditions on a valid mark (hetu), and reinforces the Nyāya doctrine of the enduring self against momentariness. It is a key link in the chain Sūtra to Bhāṣya to Vārttika to Vācaspati's Tātparyaṭīkā that carried classical Nyāya forward, and this bundle draws on it for the defence of the demonstrative form and the theory of the reason.
