Navya-Nyāya (New Nyāya)

Origin. Gaṅgeśa Upādhyāya, Tattvacintāmaṇi (14th c.). Rigorous technical language. Property theory. Formal semantics. Developed by Raghunātha, Jagadīśa, Gadādhara. Foundation of late Indian logic.

Models. Highly regimented property-talk. Limitors (avacchedaka) and limitands. Relational abstracts. Absence types. Technical language approaching formal notation.

Formalism.

Avacchedaka (limitor): Property that delimits another. "Fire-ness as limitor of the locus" = the fire. Specifies under what description.

Nirūpaka (describer): Relatum that specifies a relation. Contact described by pot-ness. Correlate specification.

Occurrence (vṛtti): Mode of presence. Contact (saṃyoga), inherence (samavāya), etc. How property resides in locus.

Absence (abhāva): pratiyogin: absentee (what's absent) anuyogin: locus (where absent) Four types: prior, destruction, absolute, mutual

Relational abstract (technically): ghaṭa-niṣṭha-saṃyoga-sambandha-avacchinna-bhūtala-vṛtti-ghaṭatva "Pot-ness occurring in ground as delimited by contact-relation residing in pot"

Pervasion refined: vyāpti = pratiyogi-sādhyāvacchedaka-sambandha-avacchinna-sādhya-vān-na-bhavati yatra hetu-vān na bhavati "Wherever the hetu is, the sādhya is, under the relevant limiters"

Definitions: Genus (jāti): sva-anyonyābhāva-pratiyogi-vṛtti-dharma "Property occurring in the counterpositive of mutual absence from itself"

Sentence meaning: śābdabodha: verbal cognition structure. Qualifier-qualificand-relation analysis. Compositional semantics.

Symbols.

Term	Sanskrit	Gloss	Role
avacchedaka	अवच्छेदक	Limitor	The property under whose description something is taken
nirūpaka	निरूपक	Describer	The relatum that specifies a relation
vṛtti	वृत्ति	Occurrence	The mode in which a property resides in a locus
abhāva	अभाव	Absence	A category in its own right, not mere negation
pratiyogin	प्रतियोगिन्	Counterpositive	What is absent
anuyogin	अनुयोगिन्	Subjunct	The locus in which it is absent
vyāpti	व्याप्ति	Pervasion	The relation licensing inference, and the chief object of definition
hetu	हेतु	Reason	The evidencing property
sādhya	साध्य	Probandum	The property to be established
saṃyoga	संयोग	Contact	Occurrence relation between separable things
samavāya	समवाय	Inherence	Occurrence relation in an inseparable locus
jāti	जाति	Genus	A real universal
śābdabodha	शाब्दबोध	Verbal cognition	The qualificand-qualifier-relation structure of understood speech

Metatheory. Navya-Nyāya proceeds by definition and counterexample rather than by derivation. Gaṅgeśa's Tattvacintāmaṇi (14th c.) canvasses a long series of candidate definitions of pervasion, rejecting each against a deviant case before settling on one, and the technical vocabulary — limitor, describer, counterpositive — exists so that the rejected cases can be stated precisely enough to be decisive. Its power is clearest in the individuation of absences: a limitor of counterpositiveness separates the absence of a pot qua pot from the absence of a pot qua substance, so absence becomes a graded category rather than a bare negation. Always-present properties such as knowability, which occur everywhere and so have no locus of absence, are the standing test that any definition of pervasion framed through absence must survive. Ingalls (1951) rendered the idiom in modern notation and argued that what it yields is a logic of relations and properties, carried by a regimented Sanskrit that functions as a symbolism without becoming one.

Applies to. Indian philosophy. Formal semantics. Property theory. Type theory comparisons. Definition methodology.

Limitations. There is no symbolism, and this is not merely a matter of presentation: the compounds encode relational structure through order and case, so scope is carried rather than marked, and expressions reach lengths at which disambiguation depends on training in the tradition. There is no quantifier either. Generality is handled through limitors and the absence machinery, which is precisely why properties present everywhere wreck definitions that a quantifier would dispose of without incident. Nothing corresponds to a derivation: inference is analyzed by stating conditions on a pervasion, not by rules carrying premises to conclusions, so there are no metatheorems and no notion of proof about which to prove anything. And the categories are contested at the base — Raghunātha revised the received Vaiśeṣika list, leaving the ontology on which the semantics rests itself in dispute.