Vyāghāta
By Swami Harshananda
Vyāghāta literally means ‘a statement that contradicts itself’.
Vyāghāta is listed as one of the eleven kinds of tarka or logic. It is actually a statement that contradicts itself and hence ridiculous. An interesting stanza sometimes quoted by commentators runs as follows:
A person is telling his friend that ‘Throughout my life I have been dumb. My father is a celibate. My mother is a barren woman. My grandfather was without children!’
References[edit]
- The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore