Within Nyāya, analogy (upamāna) is honored as one of the principal pramāṇas, or valid means of knowledge, alongside perception, inference, and verbal testimony. Its distinctive role is to reveal an unknown object through its similarity to something already familiar, thereby establishing the relation between a word and its previously unfamiliar referent. This is not merely noticing likeness; it is a specific kind of cognition that arises when a remembered description is joined with a present perception of similarity. In this way, analogy functions as a bridge between what is heard and what is seen, allowing a name to “take hold” of a new object in consciousness.

Nyāya thinkers often illustrate this with the example of the *gavaya*, the wild ox. A person is told, “A gavaya is like a cow,” and later encounters in the forest an animal resembling a cow yet clearly not a domestic one. By recalling the earlier statement and recognizing the similarity, the person arrives at the cognition, “This is the gavaya.” That moment of recognizing that the word “gavaya” applies to this newly perceived creature is the work of upamāna. The knowledge gained is not a general truth about all wild oxen, but the specific understanding of what that word denotes.

Philosophically, Nyāya treats this as an independent and irreducible means of knowledge. Perception alone yields only the seen animal, not its name; testimony alone gives a verbal description, not the direct linking of that description to a particular object; inference operates through universal concomitance, which is not what is happening in this case. Analogy, by contrast, uniquely accounts for how a person first comes to know, “This perceived thing is what that word signifies,” on the basis of similarity and prior instruction. Its scope is therefore relatively narrow but crucial: it is especially important in learning new terms, categories, and entities when they are first encountered.

Because of this, Nyāya regards analogy as both powerful and context-bound. It requires a prior statement indicating similarity, an actual encounter with the object, and a recognition of the comparative relation between the known and the unknown. When these conditions are met, analogy yields valid cognition that cannot be fully explained by the other pramāṇas. In the larger spiritual and philosophical quest for truth, it serves as a subtle instrument, refining the connection between language and reality so that thought, word, and world can gradually be brought into clearer alignment.