Nyāya speaks of liberation, mokṣa or apavarga, as the final and absolute cessation of all suffering (duḥkha). This cessation is not only the end of physical and mental pain, but also the end of those inner disturbances that keep the cycle of rebirth in motion—attachment, aversion, and delusion. Because pleasure is bound up with desire and further striving, it too is ultimately regarded as a source of bondage rather than a mark of freedom. Thus the liberated condition is not described as a positive state of bliss, but as the complete absence of both pleasant and unpleasant experiences, a sheer freedom from all affliction.

In this vision, the self (ātman) remains an eternal, individual substance, yet in liberation it is utterly free from body, senses, mind, and psychological activities. There is no cognition, no volition, no emotional movement; the self abides in a contentless, inactive mode of existence, untouched by change or defect. Liberation is therefore characterized more by what is negated—pain, pleasure, ignorance, and karmic bondage—than by any positively described experience. It is a state in which the roots of suffering have been cut off so completely that no further birth or experience can arise.

The path to this state is rigorously epistemic and logical. Nyāya holds that bondage arises from false knowledge (mithyā‑jñāna), which gives rise to attachment and aversion, which in turn generate karma and rebirth. Liberation is attained through true knowledge (tattva‑jñāna or samyak‑jñāna) of reality, especially right understanding of the self as distinct from body and mind, and of the basic categories that structure experience. Such knowledge is secured through the valid means of knowing—perception, inference, comparison, and trustworthy testimony—and through careful reasoning that removes misconceptions. When ignorance is destroyed in this way, new karma ceases to accumulate, existing karmic residues are exhausted, and the self stands free from the cycle of saṃsāra, established in a permanent, suffering‑less state.