The Nyaya system engages a person’s logical sense by means of argumentation in a logical manner. This premise led Nyaya to concern itself with epistemology, that is, the reliable means to gain correct knowledge and to remove wrong notions. False knowledge is not merely ignorance to Naiyayikas; it includes delusion. Nyayikas express the need of perception, that is, the knowledge which arises from the contact of a sense with its object and which is determinate, unnameable and non-erratic.
Jivas or individual souls are infinite in number. They are eternal and indestructible. Consciousness is not intrinsic to them but an attribute due to the association with the mind, which is considered atomic in size. The jivas themselves are all-pervading. A jiva gets all its experiences when its mind is related to the outside world through the sense-organs. The primary aim of life, according to the Nyaya system, as in other philosophical schools, is the attainment of apavarga or mokṣa, liberation from transmigration. However, unlike the other systems, they do not accept that it is a state of positive, unbroken and continuous bliss. It is more a state of negation, of the total and permanent absence of all sorrow and suffering. Since the existence of pain and pleasure is always there in life, and that too, due to the association of the mind with the senses and the objects, there can never be a state of pure pleasure or happiness or bliss without pain also.
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