Establishing the Existence of God: Insights from Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika Thought

The pursuit of liberation (mokṣa) and the means to achieve it are the prominent objectives of both the Orthodox (Āstīka) and Non-Orthodox (Nāstīka) schools of Indian philosophy. These both school’s fundamental area of exploration is cognition (jñāna) and the means of valid knowledge (pramāṇa), about which they have their own differences. Among the six Orthodox (Āstīka) schools of Indian Philosophies, the popular Nyāya philosophy founded by Gautama & Vaiśeṣika philosophy founded by kāṇāda acknowledge only four types of valid means - perception, inference, analogy and verbal testimony. Īśvara cannot be perceived, nor known through analogy, or Verbal testimony. There are factors why īśvara not being cognized by the above said means except inference. So the existence of god is established by the means of inferential cognition by naiyāyika and vaiśeṣika. We will discuss about the factors why īśvara cannot be cognized by the above said means except inference, the definition of inferential cognition, the means of inference, the five components of a syllogism referred as anumāna vākya and the Syllogism used here for the establishment of the god elaborately in this paper with few other arguments for establishing the īśvara tatvam.