The Nyaya Perspective on Verbal
Knowledge
Nyaya Philosophy of Language
General Description of Verbal Knowledge: Word (Śabda)
According to the Naiyayikas, Śabda (word) is one of the four means of valid
knowledge. Śabda (verbal knowledge) means relying on the word, the
testimony of past or present reliable experts. One must rely on experts, such
as one's parents, family, friends, teachers, ancestors, and kindred members
of society, to rapidly acquire and share knowledge and thereby enrich each
other's lives. This means of gaining proper knowledge is either spoken or
written, but through Śabda (words). The reliability of the source is
important, and legitimate knowledge can only come from the Śabda of
reliable sources.
Vyatsayana, the commentator on the Nyaya Sutra, explained who a reliable
person is as "one who knows the truth as it is" (yathartha), and whose
sentence contains cognition and thus cannot convey falsity. The Naiyayikas
believe that the actual instrumental cause of verbal knowledge is not the
words that are actually being known, but the knowledge itself of words. This
is to include cases where a person who keeps silence writes down words, or
shows a particular gesture with their fingers to produce knowledge of a
number, for example. In such cases, there could be verbal knowledge from
the knowledge of words symbolized by the script or the gesture.
Nature of Verbal Knowledge
According to the Karikavali, the instrumental cause of verbal knowledge is
the cognition itself of words. Its operation is the knowledge (i.e.,
recollection) of the meanings of words, and the knowledge of the denotative
function is the auxiliary cause.
The process of verbal knowledge, as described in the first Karika on Śabda
(Karika 81), is as follows:
a) Instrumental cause of verbal knowledge: Perception/cognition of words
(padajhanam tviti) by the sense of hearing or the knowledge of words which
arise from seeing the script.
b) Operation of the Instrumental cause: Knowledge (i.e., recollection) of the
meanings of words (padarthadhiriti). - The recollection of the meanings of
words is produced by the knowledge of words. - The auxiliary cause, in order
to produce the operation, is the knowledge of the denotative function, which
is the relation of the word and its meaning. - Without the knowledge of the
denotative function, the recollection of the meanings of words would not be
