Indian Logic Part 02

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

Page 59

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INDIAN LOGIC
for there are not two sorts of object, one producing nirvikalpaka perception and the other cognized by savikalpaka perception. In this connection Jayanta reminds the Buddhist that on the latter's own showing kalpanā is not a case of false cognition in the manner the mistaken cognition of nacre as silver is.'? Then it is submitted that savikalpaka perception does not cease to be a cognition born of senseobject contact simply because it requires the services of a word learnt in past, Jayanta's point being that the concerned sense-object contact persists even while the services of a word are being availed of.13 This submission too is substantially sound, for if anything can be called perceptual cognition it is what the Naiyāyika calls savikalpaka perception, and it is called perceptual cognition precisely because it consists in the identification of an object with which a sense-organ is in contact; by the same token, essentially mistaken is the Buddhist's counter-submission that it is not this cognition (which he calls 'postperceptual thought and treats as no pramāna) but the preceding sensory experience that is to be called perceptual cognition. The Buddhist has elaborately argued that a word can render no services to a sense-organ in the production of perceptual cognition, but this argument is valid only because he has arbitrarily chosen to equate perceptual cognition with bare sensory experience; certainly, in the production of bare sensory experience a sense-organ does not need the services of a word. Jayanta's refạtation of the argument in question is equally elaborate but its details cease to be much noteworthy once the basic fallacy vitiating this argument is kept in mind. Thus he contends that there is nothing incongruous about the causal aggregate of savikalpaka perception including a word recalled, that the memory of a word creates no gap between a sensory cognition and its object, that savikalpaka perception inspite of being a time-consuming process is of the form of perceptual cognition." All this is plainly understandable. Then Jayanta takes exception to the Buddhist's argument that a thing in all its fullness having been cognized by nirvikalpaka cognition nothing new remains to be cognized by postnirvikalpaka thought, the former's point being that the same thing can well be cognised by two cognitions. But as has already been noted, on this question both the Buddhist and Jayanta are wrong simply because nirvikalpaka perception is not at all a process of the form of cognition. Lastly, Jayanta refutes the Buddhist thesis on a fivefold kalpanā. In a nutshell his point is that a class-character, a quality and