Indian Logic Part 02

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

Page 18

PERCEPTION
tendency to acquire this object or to avoid it. Thus a distinction has to be drawn between a fullfledged experience of an object and a superficial observaton of it and, as a matter of fact, the essence of cognizing an object lies in treating the superficiai features of this object as a signal for the presence of this object. Jayanta has much of this in mind when he tells us that at the time of a first encounter with an object one has perception of pleasure etc., at the time of a later encounter one infers the possibility of pleasure etc. But he leaves us in doubt as to wherein according to him lies the essence of cognizing an object. For he just takes it for granted that an object is cognized and then argues that the cognition evokes a memory of past pleasure etc. Really, an evocation of past pleasure etc. takes place only after the object concerned has been identified, for which identification the superficial features of this object act as a signal. True, in the case of all organism other than man the fact that an object has been identified is to be gathered from the post-identification behaviour of the type Jayanta has in mind, but in the case of man this fact can also be gathered from the words uttered on the occasion; however, in both cases the fact makes its appearance in an essentially similar fashion and that makes clear as to wherein lies the essence of cognising an object. The distinction between having the sensory experience of an object and identifying this object as belonging to this class or that is neatly made by the Buddhist who, attributing the epithet ‘pratyakşa (=perceptiðn)' to the former process and the epithet 'vikalpa or kalpanā (=thought)' to the latter, emphasizes that all perception is devoid of thought. But such a fundamental twofold distinction of factors within the knowledgesituation ever remained foreign to the Nyāya and Mimāṁsā authors even after they, drawing upon the performance of the Buddhist, began to say that there takes place first nirvikalpaka-pratyaksa (=perception devoid of vikalpa) and then savikalpaka-pratyakşa (=perception possessed of vīkalpa). Little wonder, in his present distinction Jayanta makes just no use of his own school's concept of a twofold perception thus formulated. Even so, his making room for certain inference-like steps within the body of perceptual process is noteworthy, for it was the detection on such steps that enabled the Buddhist to distinguish those two fundamental factors within the knowledge-situation. Certainly, to observe certain sensory features in an object and then to identify it as belonging to this class or that is the same sort of process as to identify an object and then to recognize it as a source of pleasure etc. But the
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