Nyaya & Vaisheshika: The Logic Schools — Dr. Ram Chandra Sharma (Talk Notes)

Talk notes · Speaker: Dr. Ram Chandra Sharma · Platform: Sangam Talks (Sangam IKS Series, an MoE IKS-division project) — notes with full credit; no transcript is published for this talk, so these are viewing notes rather than a quoted summary.

Why this talk

Of the six classical darshanas, Nyaya and Vaisheshika are the pair modern audiences underestimate most — and need first. Nyaya built India’s formal logic: the five-membered inference, the taxonomy of valid and bogus reasons, the debate protocols that governed every serious intellectual contest for centuries. Vaisheshika built its ontology: the categories of reality, and an atomism reasoned out long before instruments could see. Together they are the tradition’s analytic engine — the schools every other school had to answer.

What to listen for

1. How the two schools pair: Vaisheshika’s inventory of what exists, Nyaya’s rules for how we know it.
2. The pramana framework in action — this talk is the spoken companion to our Pramanas article.
3. The series’ own frame: as its introduction puts it, “The Bharatiya way is sustainable and strives for the welfare of all” — IKS as jnan, vignan, and jeevan darshan together, not museum pieces.

Our note

The Sangam IKS Series carries an official mandate to disseminate the knowledge systems; our shelf’s job is to give each talk a readable doorway. This one opens onto our Dharma & Philosophy shelf, where the darshanas are being built out lane by lane.

Credits

Watch the full talk: on YouTube (Sangam Talks channel).
Speaker: Dr. Ram Chandra Sharma.
Original talk: Sangam Talks — Sangam IKS Series. Full attribution; series framing quoted from the talk page.