hindu-mindWe're still mapping where this idea was first discussed. Key passages and related ideas below.

Inference (Anumāna)

Smoke on the hill, so fire on the hill — the reasoning that knows the unseen through the seen.

Anumāna is inference — coming to know something not directly perceived by way of a sign reliably tied to it, the textbook case being inferring a hidden fire from the smoke one sees over a hill. Indian logicians built an elaborate, rigorous theory around it: the structure of a valid inference, the all-important 'invariable concomitance' (wherever smoke, there fire) that licenses it, and the many ways an inference can go wrong. It is the engine of philosophical argument and inter-school debate across the whole tradition.