UGC NET Questions (Paper – 1)

Purvavat anumana proceeds from knowledge of a present cause to a future effect that has not yet occurred. Observing dark clouds and inferring impending rain illustrates this pattern. Nyaya classifies such reasoning as purvavat because the inferred event is temporally posterior to the observed basis. Hence the inference described in the stem is purvavat anumana.

Option A:
Option A is correct since purvavat literally means “from the prior” and is defined as inference from cause to effect. It fits the temporal direction exemplified by clouds predicting rain.

Option B:
Option B, sesavat, goes from effect to cause, such as inferring past rain from a flooded river, which reverses the direction of temporal inference.

Option C:
Option C, samanyatodrsta, involves inference based on general uniformities not strictly causal, such as inferring motion from changing position.

Option D:
Option D, kevalanvayi, is a classification based on the nature of vyapti, not on temporal ordering of cause and effect.

Pūrvavat anumāna reasons from a presently observed cause to a future effect, based on previous experience of that sequence. Seeing dark, rising clouds and inferring that rain will soon occur is the stock illustration: clouds are known to precede rainfall. The temporal direction is from what comes earlier (cause) to what comes later (effect).

Option A:
Option A, inferring fire from smoke already on a hill, is typically treated as śeṣavat or anvayavyatireki, since smoke is regarded as the effect of an already present fire, not as a cause of future fire.

Option B:
Option B, inferring past rain from a swollen river, moves from a present effect to a past cause and is a standard example of śeṣavat anumāna.

Option C:
Option C correctly shows a present cause (dark clouds) used to infer a future effect (rain), which is the defining pattern of pūrvavat.

Option D:
Option D, inferring air from the movement of leaves, is an example of sāmānyatodṛṣṭa anumāna, where a generally observed association (moving leaves with air) is used to infer an unseen entity, not specifically a cause–future-effect sequence.