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experience of the former is based on Atiśaya-jñāna or a comparative estimate of quantities. As we have already seen, according to the Nyāya-Vaiseșika the Pārimāndalya or the Parimāņa of an atom is different from Mahatva or the massiveness of a gross thing not only in quantity but also in quality and kind. The massiveness in a gross matter is something essentially and qualitatively different from atomic quantity. The experience of massiveness is thus not the result of Atiśaya-jñāna or comparison of quantities of a gross thing and the atomic matter but is a new and qualitatively different one altogether.
PERCEPTION OF THE WHOLE
Regarding our experience of the oneness in the gross thing the Vaibhāșika's contend that it is but the perception of the atomic aggregate. Although the atoms constituting a gross thing are many in number their 'Samasti' or aggregation appears to us as one undivided whole. The Nyāya contention on the contrary is that our perception of oneness also is a unique experience and is different from the experience of an aggregate of discrete parts.
UNIQUE SENSATION OF EXTENSITY OR VOLUMINOUSNESS
In modern psychology, we find similar doctrines concerning matters of perception. Our perception of an extended thing consists in our apprehension of discrete but co-existing points having certain quasi-distance between them. But in our perception of the thing, this is not all. We have a peculiar feeling of the undivided wholeness of the thing under observation. This sensation of the thing as one whole is different from its experience as an extended substance having distinguishable dimensions and appearing as a continuous, co-existent manifold of positions. Some have called the former, a feeling of 'voluminousness' or ‘massiveness'. To distinguish this sense-experience of one whole from our perception of extension, James and Ward have called the former 'extensity' or 'extensiveness'. Herbert Spencer contended that this feeling of massiveness
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| SR No. | 001619 |
| Book Title | Reals on the Jaina Metaphysics |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Harisatya Bhattacharya |
| Publisher | Shatnidas Khetsy Charitable Trust Mumbai |
| Publication Year | 1966 |
| Total Pages | 430 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English, Philosophy, Religion, & Epistemology |
| File Size | 8 MB |