Indian Logic Part 02

Author(s): Nagin J Shah
Publisher: Sanskrit Sanskriti Granthmala

Page 16

PERCEPTION
authors. Following Jayanta let us see how.
Thus it was argued that the definition in question is a definition of perceptual cognition and yet a definition of something that causes perceptual cognition, the reason being that the epithet ‘perceptual cognition can be attributed not only to the cognition which results from a sense-object contact but also to the subsequent cognition which is to the effect that the object concerned is worthy of acquisition or avoidance?; the suggestion was that the definition in question defines the former cognition in its capacity as something that produces the latter cognition. This new solution of the problem was almost as much foreign to the intention of the original aphorist as that earlier solution proposed by Jayanta, but the endeavour to work out the former solution gave rise to an interesting inner family controversy which Jayanta reports in some details. The broadly common understanding was that following events take place following the order given : (i) a sense-organ coming in contact with an object; (ii) the perceptual cognition concerning this object; (iii) the recollection that in past an object of this sort produced pleasure etc.; (iv) the cognition that this object is likely to produce pleasure etc.; (v) the cognition that this object is worthy of acquisition etc.; and since the further understanding was that the step (ii) is itself of the form of perceptual cognition as also something that produces the step (w) which too is of the form of perceptual cognition the problem was how the step (ii) causes the step (v) which comes so much later on. As is reported by Jayanta, the problem was sought to be solved by two parties in two different ways; ( they differed not on any material point but on certain very minor points; but we are told a lot about their difference). In essence the solution was that here each step was pramāna in relation to the immediately succeeding step and pramāṇaphala (=valid cognition caused by a pramāna) in relation to the immediately preceding one, but since it was believed that what causes memory does not deserve to be called pramāna the step (ii) was not treated as pramāņa (moreover, the second party combined into one the steps (iv) and (v)); again, both parties admitted that the passage from the step (ii) to the step (iv) is an inferential process like inferring fire on the ground of perceiving smoke (however, the first party posited in between the step (iii) and step (iv) an additional one to the effect 'the realization that this present object is akin to that past object', a trivial point about which Jayanta's report makes so much fuss).
(The first party justified the positing of a new step in between (iii)