In the canonical doctrine of the Buddha – the so-called Buddhism of the Nikāyas – we find the distinction between the direct apprehension of particulars and their classification into concepts and universal categories. Within the scope of the "logical-epistemological" school (also known as Sautrāntika-Yogācāra) of Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, this distinction becomes the foundation of an epistemology grounded on two pramāṇas or “means of valid knowledge”: perception (pratyakṣa) and inference (anumāna), whose objects are, respectively, particulars (svalakṣaṇa), which exist in themselves and ultimately, and universals (sāmānyalakṣaṇa), which exist only as mental categories, without correspondence to reality itself. Both the Buddha and his Sautrāntika-Yogācārin epigones recognize a valid use of inference, while also cautioning against its misuse, pointing toward the soteriological ideal of yogipratyakṣa: the awakened being’s epistemic capacity to perceive particular objects free from the imposition of universal categories. I will explore the most significant aspects of this nirvāṇa-oriented epistemology.