It is common to encounter long and syntactically dense sentences in works on Nyāya. Much of this difficulty is due to unfamiliar technical vocabulary. In this article, I examine a few core terms which, once understood, significantly ease one’s entry into Nyāya literature. This article is based on Śrī Devadatta Pātil Śarmā’s excellent book, Vidyādharī, which is a commentary to the Tarka-Sangraha.

Ādheyatā and Adhikaraṇatā

Nyāya goes to some lengths to express simple sentences in a way that eliminates ambiguity. As an example, consider the sentence:

Yajñadattaḥ āsane vartate – Yajñadatta is on a seat.

This simple sentence is expressed in nyāya in its own peculiar way. The logic goes like this. The āsana or seat is below, and Yajñadatta is on top. The seat carries the weight of Yajñadatta. Imagine that the seat was a conscious being. It would think, “I carry the load of Yajñadatta”. This notion of being the load-bearer is called adhikaraṇatā or ādharatā. From Yajñadatta’s side, the thought would be: “I am establishing my load.” This notion is called ādheyatā.

ādheyatā is the notion that “I am the supported” or “I establish my weight”.
adhikaraṇatā is the notion that “I am the support” or “I support the weight”.

Likewise, any insentient item can be considered to have such thoughts. For example, consider a yellow cloth. The color ‘yellow’ is a guṇa or quality, while the cloth is a dravya or substantive. The guṇa is metaphorically on top, the dravya is metaphorically on the bottom. So the guṇa has ādheyatā in it, while the dravya has adhikaraṇatā in it. We can imagine that the color thinks that it ‘establishes its load or weight’ on the cloth, even though color has no weight. Likewise, we can imagine that the cloth thinks that ‘supports the weight’ of the color. We call these thoughts ādheyatā and adhikaraṇatā respectively.

Words like ādheyatā and adhikaraṇatā are sākāṅkṣa or sa-sambandhika padārthas, i.e. relational concepts. That is to say, when you hear that something is the ādheya, or supported, the question immediately arises: supported on what? i.e., what is its adhikaraṇa? And vice-versa.

Nirupya-nirupaka-bhāva

When we hear a word such as ādheya (“the supported”), a natural expectancy arises: supported on what? This expectancy points to a second term that completes the description. In Nyāya, this relation is analyzed using the notions of nirūpya and nirūpaka.

Suppose a word A is heard and, by its very meaning, generates the expectancy of another word B. In such a case, B is called the nirūpaka (the describer), while A is called the nirūpya (that which is described). Accordingly, B is said to possess nirūpakatā (describer-ness), and A is said to possess nirūpyatā (described-ness).

Vyāśa speaks Kṛṣṇa-kathā,

Vyāsa is the nirūpaka, describer, i.e. he has nirūpakatā or describer-ness
Kṛṣṇa-kathā is the nirūpya, described, i.e. it has nirūpyatā, i.e. described-ness

The relationship between these terms can be either fixed or mutual:

• Fixed relationship: In the case of Vyāsa describing the Kṛṣṇa-kathā, Vyāsa is fixed as the nirūpaka (describer) and the Kṛṣṇa-kathā is the nirūpya (described). This relationship is not reciprocal, because Kṛṣṇa-kathā does not, in turn, generate an expectancy for Vyāsa.
• Mutual relationship (parasparam): By contrast, the relationship between ādheya (supported) and adhikaraṇa (support) is mutual. The ādheya generates the expectancy of an adhikaraṇa, and the adhikaraṇa generates the expectancy of an ādheya. Accordingly, either can function as nirūpaka or nirūpya, depending on the context.

In Nyāya prose, this relationship is typically expressed using a past participle such as nirūpita, meaning “described” or “determined.” Thus, the above sentence may be rendered as:

Kr̥ṣṇa-kathā (kr̥ṣṇa-kathā) is described (nirūpitā) by Vyāsa (vyāsena)

The words niṣṭha and āśraya

Nyāya language casts the above concepts into compact compound expressions, for which it employs a specialized vocabulary. One such term is niṣṭha.

Niṣṭha: “situated in,” “established in,” or “present in.”

As an example of using this term —

“The concept of being a support that is present in the seat” becomes āsana-niṣṭha-adhikaraṇatā.
“The concept of being supported that is present in Yajñadatta” becomes yajñadatta-niṣṭha-ādheyatā.

Here, niṣṭha merely indicates location or dependence; it does not itself specify the underlying relation (such as samavāya or another sambandha), which is supplied by context. Another common device is the use of āśraya or the possessive suffix -vat.

-vat / Āśraya: these are used to denote possession.

For example, ādheyavān means “one who possesses ādheyatā.”

The term āśraya means “shelter” or “substratum” and serves a similar function.

For example, Yajñadattaḥ ādheyatā-āśrayaḥ means “Yajñadatta is the shelter of supportedness.”

Making a nyāya sentence

I now revisit the sentence:

Yajñadattaḥ āsane vartate – “Yajñadatta is on a seat”

The Nyāya sentence would be–

Āsana-niṣṭha-adhikaraṇatā-nirūpita-ādheyatā-āśrayaḥ yajñadattaḥ.

This seemingly complex phrase, which qualifies the subject yajñadattaḥ, is unpacked by reading from right to left:

yajñadattaḥ: Yajñadatta
āśrayaḥ: …is the shelter of
ādheyatā: …supportedness
nirūpita: …which is described by
adhikaraṇatā : …supportness
āsana-niṣṭha: …which is present in the seat (āsana)

Putting this together, the sentence reads:

“Yajñadatta is the shelter of the supportedness which is described by the supportness which is present in the seat.”

Although this ultimately conveys the simple idea “Yajñadatta is on the seat,” its structure is designed to fully satisfy ākāṅkṣā (semantic expectancy), leaving no aspect of the relational meaning implicit or ambiguous.

Summary

This example shows how Nyāya rewrites an ordinary sentence so that every relation is stated explicitly. Words like niṣṭha, āśraya, ādheyatā, and adhikaraṇatā simply force us to articulate where a property is located and what it depends on. Once these terms are understood, Nyāya sentences stop looking mysterious and can be read mechanically, step by step.