Karma Mimansa

Author(s): Berriedale Keith
Publisher: Berriedale Keith

Page 34

THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE
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and is unerring (kalpanapodham abhrāntam), but this merely gives us a momentary contact with something real, but utterly inexpressible, the momentary unit of experience, All our knowledge is based on this contact, but its content is supplied by the imagination (vikalpa), acting by rules which it itself imposes, a conception which has obvious analogues with the Kantian doctrine of perception." Dignāga's view did not prevail, but the problem had been brought by his efforts into clear light, and the later Nyāya seeks in various ways to explain the mutual relations of the indeterminate and determinate forms of perception. Kumărila- happily expresses the primitive form of perception as bare observation (alocana) pertaining to the object pure and simple, and resembling the cognitions that a newborn child has of its environment. Prabhākara's doctrine’ is that the indeterminate perception apprehends both the class character and the specific individuality of the object, but, inasmuch as neither class character, nor individuality can be fully realised save by comparison, the first apprehension, since it is made without such comparison, is indeterminate in character. Determinate perception arises when the self determines the perception by recalling both these things which it resembles and those from which it differs, thus recognising both ats class character and its specific individuality. The part thus played by memory in the determinate perception suggests that it must be deemed as invalid, since the theory of error adopted by Prabhākara finds the source of mistake constantly in the intervention of memory. But Prabhākara does not accept this objection as applicable to his own view of perception, and it may be argued that the action of memory in this case does not apply to the perception, but to the things which agree with, or differ from, the object perceived. There does not appear to be any very real difference between the view of Prabhākara and that of
* T. VO Stcherbatskoi, Muséon, 1904, pp. 129 ff; Keith, Logic and Atoml572, pt. II, ch. ii, Saddarśanasımuccaya, pp.33-41.
* Slokatarttika. I, 1, 4, vv. 111 ff: Maramevodava. DD. 8.10 The determinate for adds specification as substance, class, quality, motion, or name; cf. Nyayamanjarī, pp. 93.96.
Prakaranapañeikā, pp. 54-56.