Indian Logic Part 02

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

Page 26

PERCEPTION
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15
perception. Had this distinction of stages any major significance in Jayanta's eyes he should have talked about it by now, but has chosen to keep silent on the matter. True, he will soon discuss a point where much incidental reference will be made to the nirvikalpaka - savikalpaka distinction and stray incidental references will be made to it subsequently too, but the point remains that all these are incidental references and ones which leave us virtually in the dark as to where the distinction in question actually lies. This much by way of a basic assessment of Jayanta's present discussion. Then we might note his endeavour to prove that the object concerned constitutes a member of the causal aggregate which produces a perceptual cognition. The point was conceded by the Buddhist too, but he went on to add that unless this cognition bears the form of this object it cannot refer to this object, a requirement Jayanta deems superfluous ; again, arguing from the idealist standpoint the Buddhist repudiated the reality of external objects, a repudiation which stands rejected by Jayanta's present argumentation. To both these aspects of the question Jayanta refers all right, but he also adds that they have been properly dealt with elsewhere. Really, the question as to how a cognition is produced by its object is an important question deserving an independent treatment. Thus it was a Buddhist contention that perception is a cognitive process which is produced by its object, thought a cognitive process which is not so produced : liberally understood, it meant that perception ( = bare sensory experience) is a cognitive part-process in which the cognizer plays a passive role the object an active role, thought one in which the opposite happens: Naturally, this mode of argumentation was foreign to the Naiyāyaka but Jayanta has made some use of it too. Thus we have found him distinguishing memory from non-mnemonic cognition on the ground that the latter is and the former is not produced by its object ; in fact, it is difficult to see how any cognitive process save bare sensory experience can be said to be produced by its object. Certainly, if perceptual cognition consists in identifying an object on the basis of its observed sensory features then it is misleading to say that this cognition is produced by this object ( for what has been produced by this object is the bare sensory experience which constitutes just the starting point of this cognition); to say that an inferential cognition or the like is produced by its object is even more misleading. In any case, the consideration whether a cognition is or is not produced by its object is not a consideration of major significance even in