Drshtanta

(“example”) In Indian philosophy, the
examples that are one of the required
elements in the accepted form of an
inference (anumana). These examples
were provided as further evidence to
prove the reason (hetu) given to support
the hypothesis. As a rule, there had to be
two such examples. One was a positive
example (sapaksha) to show that similar
things happened in comparable cases,
and the other was a negative example
(vipaksha) to show that this did not
happen in other cases. In the most common example of an inference, “There is
fire on the mountain, because there is
smoke on the mountain,” the sapaksha
could be “like kitchen” (a place with
both fire and smoke), and the vipaksha
“unlike lake” (a place without fire or
smoke). The purpose of both examples
is to support the reason given, by showing that this reason gives sufficient
cause to support the theory.