Indian Logic Part 02

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

Page 68

PERCEPTION
57
in question is a cognition produced by the brother to come home the next day because this brother is after all in existence at the time when this cognition takes place. As a matter of fact, a past or a future object can produce nothing at present, and so not being in a position to produce bare sensory experience it is in no position to become an object of perceptual cognition. Jayanta does consider the Kumārilite's objection that what is not present cannot be an object of perceptual cognition, but he dismisses it as invalid on the ground that the latter himself elsewhere says that when an object is perceived it is perceived as a long-standing object.22 Actually, the Kumārilite has only argued that the continuous perception of an object proves that this object is not momentary; this argument might be invalid but it does not imply that a past or a future thing can be an object of perception. Be that as it may, Jayanta concludes that a yogin can perceive future religious duty just as one can perceive one's brother coming home the next day.Nay, he now contends that a yogin can be omniscient even. The Kumārilite objects : “If a yogin perceives all future things at once he must simultaneously perceive all sorts of mutually contradictory things that are likely to occur sometime or other; if he perceives them one after another his perception should never come to an end.'? 24 Jayanta replies : “The yogin perceives all future things at once while the simultaneous perception of mutually contradictory things is not an impossibility, just like the perception of a variegated patch of colour, or like the simultaneous perception of hot sunshine over head and ice-cold water under feet.25 The Kumārilite asks : “Then how does a yogin differ from God whose speciality too lies in being omniscient;??26 Jayanta replies : "Omniscience in God is something natural; the same in a yogin is something acquired.''27 The Kumārilite objects : “But a religious duty can be learnt from Vedas alone, so that even a yogin cannot learn it in any other way;'28 Jayanta replies : "No, the yogin does learn it in another way. Moreover, Vedas themselves are composed by God, so that it is in the very nature of things impossible for God to acquire from Vedas the knowledge of a religious duty."29 This way the polemic has entered another field altogether, a field covered by Jayanta in the course of his treatment of verbal testimony.
• (d) On the Sankhya Definition of Perception Jayanta closes his section on perception with a very brief critical reference to the Sankhya definition of perception. According to this