According to the Nyaya, all error is subjective. Vatsyayana says: "What is set aside by true knowledge is the wrong apprehension, not the object".

Uddyotakara observes, taking the mirage as an instance, that the object all the while remains what it actually is. In regard to the flickering rays of the sun, when there arises the cognition of water, there is no error in the object. It is not that the rays are not rays, nor that the flickering is not flickering; the error lies in the cognition, as the cognition of a thing as something which it is not.

The realism of the Nyaya is here slightly modified, since it cannot account for the rise of illusions on the view that the world of experienced things exists independently of any relation to the experiencing subject. All erroneous cognition has some basis in reality. Vatsyayana says: "No wrong apprehension is entirely baseless". Error is the apprehension of an object as other than what it is, and this view of anyathakhyati is supported by the Nyaya.