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Darsana
451
tion between visual and the nonvisual senses is understandable as the former apprehends from a distance while the latter through contact. But, to place the mind also in this category is hard to explain. As a matter of fact mind has no darśana. Its function is limited to the objects grasped by the external senses. Memory and conceptual deliberations like inference etc., which are the actual province of mind, do not pass through the stage of daršana. This view is supported by the Nandi sūtra also, which does not admit the variety of mental perception.
According to Siddhasena Divākaral ordinary darśana is .confined to mind and the visual sense only. Consequently, acaksurdarśana means the mental apprehension not derived through a mark or hetu. According to this view the cognition springing from mind alone, and not from any other senses, falls under the head of acakşurdarśana. It is the cognition of :subtle or distant things, such as atom, meru etc.
We are at a loss to understand precisely the underlying idea of the above view that the mental cognition of an atom is acakşurdarśana while that of fire through the mark of smoke is jñāna. Perhaps, it means that in the case of inference the mind does not conceive the object independently. The conception of fire is memory which depends upon the former sensecognition. The perception of the mark helps in revival of that memory. In the case of mental cognition like that of atoms, the idea is formed by the mind itself. It is a mental vision, where the senses are helpless. Further, in ipference we do not construct a mental image. It is simply the cognition of the existence of major term. In the mental visual cognition a certain image is constructed. The former is conceptual, the latter perceptual.
The above views are mainly concerned with the conception of darśana as the cognition of generality, Dhavalā also follows nearly the same view. But in its case caksurdarśana does not 1. Saninati II. 25, 26
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