Bhaṭṭa Jayanta, a well-known Nyāya scholar (ca. 9–10th century), touches upon the “not-causing [reason]” (aprayojaka[-hetu]), the sixth type of pseudo-reason (hetvābhāsa), in his Nyāyamañjarī. He refers to it as anyathāsiddha, which is included as a subdivision of sādhyasama, one of the traditional five pseudo-reasons, by Uddyotakara and others. Several studies, e.g. Gokhale [1992] and Ono [2002], already partially discuss this fallacy, but have not examined the criticism of it that appears in the Nyāyamañjarī: “this type of pseudo-reason is the same as the ‘inconclusive reason [anaikāntika-hetu].’” This paper examines this section and shows that in the background to his acceptance of the sixth pseudo-reason that deviates from the traditional five conditions was Buddhist and Cārvāka criticism of the Naiyāyika theory of pervasion-determination and pseudo-reasons; that is, Jayanta proposed his theory of universal pervasion-determination and prayojaka/aprayojaka to answer this criticism. In this way, he tried to avoid the criticism of the bādha theory by Buddhists like Dharmakīrti and to suggest a solution, while clarifying the problems in the extreme antarvyāpti theory and the empirical bādha-theory.
