Vada in Theory and Practice: Studies in Debates, Dialogues and Discussions in Indian Intellectual Discourses c8.s5.26

c8.s5.26

The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika school advocated realism in the sense that it maintained difference between *dharma* (attribute, substrata) and *dharmin* (substance). Because of this, it came to be sharply divided not only with idealists like the adherents of the Mādhyamika and Yogācāra schools of Buddhist philosophy, but with Pūrva-Mīmāṁsā and Vedānta as well. Vedānta holds *dharmin* alone as real and all its *upādhis* (attributes) as *vivartas* (unreal effects). Contrary to this, the Diṅnāga–Dharmakīrti school regards only *dharmas* in the form of discrete moments — as real, *dharmin* — the substance is just a mental construct and unreal.