---
type: Concept
bundle: nyaya-vaisheshika
bundle_version: 0.9.0
id: nigrahasthana
title: Nigrahasthāna
iast: Nigrahasthāna
devanagari: निग्रहस्थान
description: 'Points of defeat: the enumerated conditions under which a debater is judged to have lost, such as self-contradiction, shifting the thesis, incoherence, or falling silent; the procedural close of a formal debate; NOT the fallacies of inference (that is hetvābhāsa), NOT penalties for rudeness, NOT a scoring system for style.'
darshana:
- Nyāya
text_source: Nyāya Sūtra 5.2
tags:
- nigrahasthana
- points-of-defeat
- debate
- nyaya
- procedure
not:
- term: the fallacies of inference (hetvābhāsa)
  why: Hetvābhāsa are defects in a mark that make an inference unsound; nigrahasthānas are grounds on which a debater is ruled to have lost the debate, for example contradicting oneself, abandoning the thesis, repeating without answering, or being reduced to silence. One is a fault in reasoning, the other a condition of dialectical defeat, though a bad inference can become an occasion for defeat.
  instead: 'Present nigrahasthāna as the defeat-conditions of a formal debate: the procedural rules that decide when a party has lost, distinct from whether a given inference was internally sound.'
- term: penalties for rudeness or bad conduct
  why: The points of defeat are dialectical, not disciplinary. They track failures of the argumentative role, incoherence, evasion, self-refutation, not breaches of etiquette. A perfectly polite debater who contradicts himself has reached a nigrahasthāna.
- term: a stylistic scoring rubric
  why: Nigrahasthāna is not about eloquence or persuasiveness. It is a checklist of structural failures in maintaining and defending a position; a dull but coherent debater does not incur them, while a brilliant but self-contradicting one does.
related:
- /concepts/vada.md
- /concepts/jalpa.md
- /concepts/hetvabhasa.md
- /concepts/shodasha-padartha.md
timestamp: '2026-07-02'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Nigrahasthāna -- निग्रहस्थान

**Not:** inference fallacies, rudeness penalties, style scoring

## What It Actually Means

Nigrahasthāna, 'ground of defeat', is the last of Nyāya's sixteen categories and the formal close of its theory of debate. It enumerates the conditions under which a participant is judged to have lost: contradicting one's own thesis, abandoning or shifting it mid-debate, offering a reason that establishes the opposite, meaningless or incoherent statement, mere repetition, inability to reply, falling silent, and so on, a list the Nyāya Sūtra develops in detail. Its role is procedural: it tells us when a debate has actually ended in a decision, which is what turns disputation from an endless exchange into a resolvable contest. It is important to keep nigrahasthāna distinct from hetvābhāsa: a pseudo-reason is a flaw in an inference considered on its own, while a point of defeat is a condition of losing a debate. Together with vāda, jalpa, and vitaṇḍā, nigrahasthāna shows how thoroughly Nyāya formalised not just reasoning but the public, rule-governed practice of arguing.

## Audience Metaphor

Chess has two different rulebooks in play. One tells you which moves are legal (like the rules of sound inference). The other tells you when the game is actually over: checkmate, resignation, running out of time. Nigrahasthāna is the second rulebook for debate, the checklist of ways to be checkmated in an argument: contradict yourself, abandon your claim, go silent. It is what makes a debate finishable, not merely endless.

## Citations

1. Nyāya Sūtra 5.2 (the catalogue of points of defeat) -- see [references/nyaya-sutra.md](../references/nyaya-sutra.md)
2. Vātsyāyana, Nyāya Bhāṣya, on nigrahasthāna in debate -- see [references/nyaya-bhashya.md](../references/nyaya-bhashya.md)
3. Uddyotakara, Nyāyavārttika -- see [references/nyayavarttika.md](../references/nyayavarttika.md)
