Nyayabindu

The Nyayabindu is a significant work by the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakirti, who lived in the 7th century. This text is a key contribution to Buddhist logic and epistemology. Dharmakirti's work, including the Nyayabindu, built upon the ideas of Dignaga, another influential Buddhist logician.123

In the Nyayabindu, Dharmakirti distinguished between four types of perception: sensory, mental, self-consciousness, and the perception of yogis. He also refined the understanding of inference, proposing a threefold distinction for valid middle terms, focusing on identity, cause and effect, or nonperception. A central tenet of Dharmakirti's philosophy, as presented in his works, is that perception deals with the unique particular, while inference deals with the universal.12