 Vātsyāyana helpfully delineates the philosophical method that the Nyāya system, as laid out in the Aphorisms on Inquiry, uses in treating its subject matter. It proceeds in three steps (Thakur 1967: 181). The first step consists in enumeration (uddeśa), which involves mentioning the various items to be treated in the theory, e.g., in the lists (i), (ii), and (iii) given above. The second step consists in definition (lakṣaṇa) which involves laying down a defining property, i.e., a property that distinguishes the nature of the definiendum (tattvavyavacchedaka-dharma)  (Ibid.).[7]  The third consists in examination (parīkṣā), i.e., checking whether or not a certain definition is adequate. The philosopher’s project, on this view, is therefore to define a kind K by articulating necessary and sufficient conditions for being an instance of K, where K may be a method of knowing, a kind of knowable entity, a component of rational inquiry, a style of debate, or a dialectical strategy. This project was developed by the commentators and sub-commentators of the Aphorisms on Inquiry, and was ultimately absorbed into a larger syncretic tradition that combined the epistemological commitments of Nyāya with the ontological scheme of Vaiśeṣika philosophy and therefore came to be known as Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika.