---
type: Concept
bundle: vedanta-epistemology
bundle_version: "0.3.1"
id: anumana
title: "Anumāna — Inferential Cognition"
iast: "anumāna"
devanagari: "अनुमान"
description: "Inferential Cognition. Not syllogism, not deductive reasoning."
darshana:
  - Nyāya
  - Advaita Vedānta
school_scope: "cross-darśana (Advaita auxiliary-pramāṇa role foregrounded; Nyāya five-membered structure presented for context but not as the Advaita primary analysis)"
text_source: "Tarkasaṃgraha §§14–20 (Annambhaṭṭa); Vedāntaparibhāṣā Ch.3 (Dharmarāja Adhvarin)"
tags:
  - pramana-shastra
  - epistemology
  - advaita-vedanta
  - inference
  - vyapti
  - cross-darshana
  - tier-1
not:
  - term: "syllogism"
    why: "the Aristotelian syllogism is a formal deductive structure (All A are B; C is A; therefore C is B); anumāna is a cognition, not a formal argument — its verbal expression (the five-membered pañcāvayava) is an aid to another's inference, not the inference itself"
    instead: "Keep Inferential Cognition untranslated; do not substitute the English term."
  - term: "deductive reasoning"
    why: "deduction moves from general premises to particular conclusions by logical necessity; anumāna moves from perceived mark (liṅga) to inferred entity (sādhya) via vyāpti (invariable concomitance), which is not formal entailment but causal-pervasive connection"
  - term: "inductive generalization"
    why: "induction (in Hume's and Mill's sense) establishes correlations from observed instances; vyāpti is not statistical correlation but a necessary connection grounded in causal structure — the repeated observation of fire-with-smoke confirms what is already causally fixed"
  - term: "abductive inference"
    why: "inference to the best explanation (Peirce's abduction) introduces the 'best' as a criterion of theory selection; arthāpatti (a different pramāṇa) is closer to abduction, and even it is not abduction; anumāna requires established vyāpti, not explanatory elegance"
  - term: "formal logic"
    why: "formal logic is the study of valid argument forms independent of content; anumāna is about a specific content-laden cognitive operation with specific causal conditions, not a formal calculus"
  - term: "Mill's methods"
    why: "Mill's methods (Agreement, Difference, etc.) aim at inductive discovery of causal laws; vyāpti is not established by any of Mill's five methods, which assume the very uniformity of nature that Indian logic explains differently"
related:
  - /concepts/pramana.md
  - /concepts/pratyaksha.md
  - /concepts/arthapatti.md
  - /concepts/tarka.md
  - /concepts/shabda-pramana.md
  - ../../nyaya-vaisheshika/concepts/anumana.md
timestamp: "2026-06-20"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Anumāna — अनुमान

**Not:** syllogism, deductive reasoning, inductive generalization, abductive inference, formal logic, Mill's methods

Anumāna is valid inferential cognition — knowledge that arises not from direct contact with an object but from the perception of a mark (liṅga or hetu) whose invariable concomitance (vyāpti) with the inferred entity (sādhya) has been established. It is the second major pramāṇa, operative wherever direct perception ends and where scriptural testimony does not apply.

Anumāna is a cognition, not an argument form. Its verbal expression in the five-membered pañcāvayava is a pedagogical device for conveying an inference to another — the inference itself is a mental event in the inferring agent.

## Etymology

From Sanskrit *anu* (after, following) + *māna* (knowing, measuring — from root *mā*, to measure). Literally: knowing that which follows, knowledge that comes in the wake of — specifically, in the wake of perceiving a mark. Anumāna follows pratyakṣa (perception of the liṅga) and depends on previously established vyāpti (the invariable connection), but its conclusion reaches what perception cannot directly contact.

## The Structure of Anumāna

### The Three Components

Every valid anumāna requires:

1. **Vyāpti** (invariable concomitance): the established necessary connection between the hetu (reason/mark) and sādhya (what is to be inferred). *Wherever there is smoke, there is fire.* Vyāpti is not correlation; it expresses a pervasive, causally grounded relation. Its establishment requires *tarka* (hypothetical reasoning — see tarka.md) and prior observation, but it is not itself an induction.

2. **Pakṣadharmatā** (the mark being present in the subject): the hetu is perceived in the pakṣa (the subject of inference). *The mountain has smoke.*

3. **Sādhanavyāpti** (conjunction of vyāpti and pakṣadharmatā): from the two established premises, the inferential cognition arises: *Therefore the mountain has fire.*

### The Five-Membered Argument (Pañcāvayava)

The verbal expression of anumāna for communication has five limbs (in Nyāya; other schools use three):

1. **Pratijñā** (thesis): "The mountain has fire."
2. **Hetu** (reason): "Because it has smoke."
3. **Udāharaṇa** (example with rule): "Wherever there is smoke, there is fire — as in a kitchen hearth."
4. **Upanaya** (application): "The mountain has smoke — like the kitchen hearth."
5. **Nigamana** (conclusion): "Therefore the mountain has fire."

This is not a deductive syllogism. The udāharaṇa (example) is not a major premise — it is an appeal to the established vyāpti through a well-known case. The five-membered form is adapted for another's understanding, not required for the inference to occur in the inferring agent (who may need only three limbs for personal inference — svārthānumāna vs. parārthānumāna).

### Types of Anumāna

The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika tradition distinguishes three types by the direction of inference:

1. **Pūrvavat** (fore-like): from cause to effect (seeing dark clouds, inferring imminent rain)
2. **Śeṣavat** (residue-like): from effect to cause (seeing a swollen river, inferring upstream rain)
3. **Sāmānyatodṛṣṭa** (known through general correlation): inference that is neither causal in either direction — seeing the movement of a chariot from afar and inferring movement of the wheel

Advaita does not reject this taxonomy but does not build its epistemology around it. The Vedāntaparibhāṣā focuses instead on the structure of vyāpti-establishment and the conditions under which anumāna produces valid cognition.

## The Role of Anumāna in Advaita Vedānta

Anumāna is legitimate and important in Advaita — but it is strictly secondary to Śruti for any knowledge touching Brahman's nature.

**Where anumāna works well in Advaita:**
- Establishing that a cause must exist for the manifest world (cosmological reasoning toward Brahman as ground)
- Demonstrating the inadequacy of purely materialist explanations of consciousness
- Establishing logical consistency of Advaita positions (tarka as ancillary to anumāna)
- Refuting rival philosophical positions (the Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya uses anumāna extensively in the *pūrvapakṣa*-*siddhānta* dialectic)

**Where anumāna fails in Advaita:**
- Brahman's *svarūpa* (intrinsic nature) cannot be reached by anumāna. Anumāna requires vyāpti — an established pervasive connection observed in some perceptible domain, then extended to the inferred case. Brahman's nature (pure consciousness, non-dual, without attributes) cannot be the sādhya of any inference because there is no perceptible domain in which Brahman has been correlated with any hetu. Śaṅkara is explicit: inference can point toward a first cause but cannot characterize the nature of that cause — for that, Śruti alone is the instrument.

This is the crucial Advaita epistemological claim: the pramāṇas are domain-specific. Anumāna cannot exceed its domain (the world of perceptible regularities and their extensions). For a domain that lies entirely beyond perceptible regularities, only a pramāṇa that is itself not object-dependent — śabda as apauruṣeya testimony — can serve.

## Vyāpti Is Not Induction

The most common AI error: rendering *vyāpti* as 'inductive generalization.' This collapses the distinction between Indian and Western inference theory.

In Humean induction, past regularities provide evidence for future regularities, but no necessary connection is established — constant conjunction is all that is available. Vyāpti in Indian logic is not probabilistic or based on constant conjunction alone. It is established by *vyabhicāra-darśana-abhāva* — the *absence* of any counterexample, combined with *tarka* (hypothetical reasoning that shows the connection would fail if the necessity did not hold). The goal is necessary connection, not high probability.

This matters for AI: rendering "anumāna" as "inductive reasoning" imports the Humean problem of induction (why trust past regularities?) into a framework that is explicitly built to avoid it. The import is not a translation; it is a structural misreading.

## Cross-References
- [Pramāṇa](pramana.md) — anumāna is the second pramāṇa in the Advaita list
- [Pratyakṣa](pratyaksha.md) — the direct cognition that provides vyāpti-confirmation and the perceptual base for inference
- [Tarka](tarka.md) — hypothetical reasoning that supports but does not replace anumāna
- [Arthāpatti](arthapatti.md) — postulation; related to but structurally distinct from anumāna
- [Śabda / Āgama (pramāṇa)](shabda-pramana.md) — the pramāṇa that supplements anumāna for Brahman-knowledge; what inference cannot reach, Śruti addresses
- Vyāpti — [v0.9 nyāya-vaiśeṣika] — the invariable concomitance on which anumāna depends; Nyāya-specific analysis deferred to v0.9

## Audience Metaphor

Like seeing smoke on a distant mountain and knowing there must be fire — not because you've seen this particular fire, but because fire and smoke are inseparably connected in a way that has been established over time. You're not guessing; you're following a track that is causally laid. The sign and what it signifies are bound together, not merely correlated.

## Citations

1. [Tarkasaṃgraha](/references/tarkasangraha.md) §§14–20 — Annambhaṭṭa's analysis of anumāna, the five-membered argument (pañcāvayava), and the types of hetu (reason)
2. [Vedāntaparibhāṣā](/references/vedantaparibhasha.md) Ch.3 — Dharmarāja Adhvarin's treatment of anumāna within Advaita epistemology, including its scope and limits relative to Brahman-knowledge
3. Nyāyadarśana 1.1.5 — Gautama's definition of anumāna
4. [Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya](/references/brahmasutra-bhasya.md) 2.1.6 — Śaṅkara on the limits of anumāna in establishing Brahman's nature

## Cross-Darśana Note (Nyāya anumāna)

The same term is treated from its source school in **nyaya-vaisheshika (v0.9)**, where anumāna is a full pramāṇa yielding certainty, five-membered, resting on a real vyāpti. Here in Advaita epistemology anumāna is finally subordinate to śabda and cannot by itself reach the non-dual. Same word, different darśana — this is school-contrast, not duplication. See [nyaya-vaisheshika anumāna](../../nyaya-vaisheshika/concepts/anumana.md).
