NYAYA ( याय)

Introduction

Law is often thought of as the ultimate expression of justice in society. But justice is truly more
than just the law. The idea of justice can’t be captured by any single morality or standpoint but
only emerges from the interaction among contending perspectives5. Nyaya in broader meaning
is reaching to the truth. Its ultimate concern is to bring an end to human suffering, which results
from ignorance of reality. Liberation is brought about through right knowledge. Nyaya is thus
concerned with the means of right knowledge3. Justice is the parallel word in English which
mean just behavior or just treatment. Justice is defined as the maintenance or administration of
what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of
merited rewards or punishments4. Broadly speaking, justice, means the fulfilment of the
legitimate expectation of the individual under laws and to assure him the benefit promised
therein. Justice tries to reconcile the individual rights with the social good. The concept of justice
is related to dealings amongst human beings. It emphases on the concept of equality. It requires
that no discrimination should be made among the various members of the society6. The
definition of justice is a moving target; conceptualizing justice is an ever-changing, subjective
process of assessing the fairness of relations between individuals and groups of people5.

Nyaya has reference and context

Nyaya has a reference and a context without which nyaya cannot be defined. As Amatrya Sen
rightly argued that there are plural and competing reasons for justice which make it difficult to
take an impartial decision that is fair to all. He gives an example to illustrate this. Three children,
Anne, Bob and Carla, are quarrelling over the ownership of a flute. There is only one flute and
everybody makes a claim on it. Anne says, she is the only one among the three who knows how
to play a flute, and so she should get it. Bob says, he is so poor that he doesn’t have the means
to buy a flute and so he should be given the flute. Carla says that she actually made the flute
with her own hand and so she is entitled to own it. Each one is right as far as the fact of the
claim is concerned1. The question Sen raises is about the principles underlying the allocation of
resources in general. It is about the social arrangements, social institutions, and social
realizations in connection with justice. Whatever theory you adopt, “there may not indeed exist
any identifiable perfectly just social arrangement on which impartial agreement would emerge”