The Samkhya System: A History of the Samkhya Philosophy c12.26

c12.26

While the interaction of Vedānta and Sāṃkhya is thus marked, there are few traces of close connection with the Nyāya school. The most important is the exposition of the doctrine of inference found in Vācaspatimiśra’s commentary on Sāṃkhya Kārikā 5, which appears to mark an independent development by the Sāṃkhya of principles adopted, more or less uncritically in the first instance, from the Nyāya rather than to contain a record of a doctrine presupposed by the early form of Sāṃkhya.* In this view inference is divided into direct (*vīta*) and indirect (*avīta*); the latter category coincides with *śeṣavat*, and means proof by the elimination of alternative explanations; the former includes *pūrvavat* and *sāmānyato dṛṣṭa*, which differ in that the result of the former is a judgment dealing with realities which can be perceived, while the latter gives knowledge of such imperceptible entities as the senses or the soul.