Karma Mimansa

Author(s): Berriedale Keith
Publisher: Berriedale Keith

Page 35

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THE KARMA-MIMĀMSĀ
Kumārila, though their verbal expression differs ; Kumārıla holds that in cognition in the form of indeterminate perception neither the genus nor the differentia is presented to consciousness, and that all that is present is the individual in which both these characteristics subsist. Like Prabhākara, he holds that determinate perception is no less valid than indeterminate perception, since it merely makes explicit what is implicit in the indeterminate form.
The views of the school are best understood when brought into contact with the metaphysical doctrine to which they correspond. The essence of that doctrine accepts generality as a real existence which is perceptible as much as individual things, and in the simplest form of perception, therefore, the two aspects of reality are equally present,
The objects of perception include, besides generalities, substances, qualities, and, in the view of Kunārila, but not of Prabhākara, motion. The Nyāya holds that there are six forms of contact in perception; substance is perceived by conjunction; qualities by their inherence in what is in conjunction, and so also the generality of substance, generality of quality by inherence in that which inheres in that which is in conjunction ; sound as a quality of ether, a portion of which forms the organ of hearing, is perceived by inherence, and its generality by inherence in that which inheres, while negation and inherence itself are perceived by a peculiar and artificial variety of contact, styled the relation of qualification and qualified. Prabhākara, though he accepts the doctrine of inherence, denies genus to quality, notion, and sound, and so contents himself with recognising the first, second, and fourth forms of contact as valid, and with pointing out that to perceive qualities, there is requisite the contact of the substance and the organs, of the organs and the qualities, of the organs and mind, and of mind and the self. Substance and qualities, he holds, may be perceived apart. In Kumārila's school, however, which denies inherence, the contacts are reduced to simple conjunction, and identity with what is in conjunction (samyuktatādātmya), the second covering perception of generality of substance, quality and