Indian Logic Part 02

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

Page 28

PERCEPTION
17
perceived when the manas concerned comes in contact with them. Again, the manas is also assigned a role in external perception; for the supposition is that even when a sense-organ is in contact with an external object, the soul concerned will not perceive this object unless the manas concerned is in contact with this sense-organ on the one hand and this soul on the other. Lastly, the manas is supposed to be not only the organ of perceiving pleasure etc. but also the organ of producing pleasure etc.; for the position is that pleasure etc. are produced in a soul only after the 'manas concerned has been appropriately active. Really, pleasure etc. are supposed to be produced only after the object concerned has been cognized and in all cognition - perceptual or otherwise - manas has a role to play; however, what cognition will be followed (if at all) by what pleasure, pain etc. depends on some further activity on the part of the manas (a non-perceptual cognition itself must be a result of some full activity on the part of the manas). Thus it is that the Naiyāyika has made the phenomenon of 'internal perception correspond the phenomenon of external perception. Obviously, the correspondence in question is merely a formal correspondence, that is, a correspondence that just shows how the Nayāya notions of 'objectof-perception' and 'contact' are valid not only in the case of the perception of a physical body but also in the case of the perception of a mental state. A material probe into the nature of a mental state Jayanta undertakes in the course of the enquiry he conducts next.
(2) Jayanta has finished his consideration of the significance of the word 'indriyārthasannikarşotpanna' occurring in the definition of perception under examination; he now considers the significance of the word 'jñāna (=cognition)' occurring there. He first submits that this definition includes so many adjectives which must be attributed to some noun and this noun is the word 'jñāna!37 But the question is why 'jñāna' ? So it is next argued that since the mental states like pleasure etc. too are possibly born of a sense-object contact they will not be excluded from the purview of the present definition unless it explicitly describes perception as a type of cognition.38 This gives rise to an important discussion primarily because the Buddhist has maintained a rather odd position on the question, that is, the position that pleasure etc. are of the nature of cognition ; thus he argues that pleasure, pain, desire, aversion, effort etc. are so many types of cognition itself because whatever causal aggregate produces cognition produces pleasure etc.