पौरुषेयत्वे नैयायिकाः

Source: TW

Nyaya authors of an earlier time (namely Gautama, Vätsyāyana and Uddyotakara) have attempted to prove the reliability of the Veda author out of partial tests, through which the general reliability of an author can be inferred. But how to test the Veda, which deals with perceptible things, such as dharma?

Gautama, Vātsyāyana and Uddyotakara inferred the validity of the Veda out of the fact that the same rṣis (said to be their draṣṭr̥ and pravaktr̥ ‘seers and transmitters’ in NBh ad 2.1.68) uttered the Veda and Vedic texts whose validity one can check through other instruments of knowledge, such as mantras against snakes’ poison, and the Ayurveda.

The inference is, nonetheless, open to objections, since it could be claimed that the fact that an author X is reliable in regard to Y does not prove that he is reliable in regard to anything else.

In order to strengthen the claim, Naiyayikas tend to equate reliability with omniscience, so that the test through the Ayurveda does not amount just to a test of the reliability of its utterer(s), but also of his (their) extraordinary knowledge. One(s) who can know about medicine, can know about everything else, seems to be the implicit claim, and is hence reliable in all other fields of knowledge as well, including dharma.

But even after such changes, the argument continued to be attacked by Mīmāmsakas. 15

Jayanta claims that the Ayurveda is well-known as the work of certain human authors (such as Caraka, see NM 4, NM, p. 607, 11.19-20), whereas the Veda has been authored by God himself. Accordingly, for Jayanta the Ayurveda is not the probans for the reliability of the author of the Veda, but rather only an example which establishes the invariable concomitance …

15 For a history of the Mīmāmsā vs. Nyāya debate on the validity of the Veda, see Freschi and Graheli 2005, where the Ayurveda-Veda argument is discussed and analysed at length. For the Mimämsä criticism of this argument see Kataoka 2011b, pp. 343-345.

Mīmāmsaka criteria: being the only instrument of knowledge which grasps dharma, being free of doubt, and defects in the causes, and not subsequently invalidated

Naiyayika criteria: having a reliable author

Table 2: Principal criteria for the validity of the Veda the text has a reliable author

…. Accordingly, the reliable speaker knows the topic and desires to communicate what he knows. He is epistemically and morally competent. This reliable speaker of sacred texts can, according to Jayanta, only be God.