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THE DEFINITION OF PERCEPTION
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form of knowledge is essentially dependent for its origin and distinctive character on the stimulation of the sense-vrgans. There is a departure from this common usage in the definition of pratyaksa or perception given by the Advaita Vedānta, the Prābhākara Mimāmsā and the Jaina system. According to the Prābhākaras, perception is the direct cognition of an object. It is the intuitive or immediate knowledge that we may have of the subject and object of knowledge or of knowledge itself. ' For the Jainas too, pratyakşa is the direct and immediate knowledge of objects. It is of two kinds . mukhya or the primary and samvyavahārika or the practical The first is quite independent of the mind and the senses. While the origin of the second is conditioned by the mind and the senses, its essence lies in the direct cognition of soine object. Hence perception is in its essential nature a direct knowledge of objects.
In the Advaita Vedānta, perception as a pramāna is the unique cause (karana) of perception as a form of valid knowledge (pramā). In this sense, the sense-organs constitute the karana or the unique cause of perceptual cognition. The latter (2 e. pratyaksa pramā), however, is defined as immediate and timeless knowledge (cartanya). Such immediate knowledge is the self itself, because it is only in the self that there is pure immediacy of knowledge. The senses are the karana or the unique cause of perception as immediate knowledge in so far as the mental modıfication (antahkaranavrtti), which manifests it, is due to the function of the sense-organs. What takes place in perception is this. The antaḥkarana or mind goes out through the sense-organ which is in contact with a present perceptible object and becomes so modified as to assume the form
1 Sāksitpratītih pratyaksam meyamārpranāsu sā, Praharanapancıkä pp 51-52.
2 Visada bānasvabhāvam pratyaksim, avgavadbänena pramaņāutaranırapekatayā pratibbāsanam vastupo'nubhavo vaibadyam vijñā pasyeti etc , Prameyakamala martanda, pp. 57-67.
