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ORDINARY PERCEPTION AND ITS OBJECTS
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latter.' Sound is first produced by the conjunction or disjunction of things. But this sound cannot be perceived unless it reaches the passage of the ear. So the first sound produces other sounds which either undulate towards the ear or move in straight lines in all directions (vīcitaranganyāyena kadarnbamukulanyāyena vā) In this way the series of sounds meets the ear. The last number of the series which strikes upon the ear-drum is perceived, while the first and the intermediate ones are not perceived. So it is not correct to say that we perceive sound at a distance. The Vedāntist, however, thinks that in the perception of sound it is the ear that meets sound and not vice versa. We are not wrong when we say that we hear the sound of the distant drum. For there is nothing to contradict the obvious experience of distant sounds.8
The attributes that admit of perception by both the senses of sight and touch are number, magnitude, differentia, conjunction, disjunction, remoteness, nearness, fluidity, viscidity and velocity. These are perceived by the eye when connected with light and manifest colour, and by the tactual sense when connected with manifest touch. Of visible and tangible things there may be respectively a visual and tactual perception of their number, etc. In the perception of these qualities we have the second kind of senseobject contact, viz samyukta-samavāya. The objects (i.e. number and the rest) come in contact with the senses through their inherence (samavāya) in certain things that are conjoined (samjukta) to the senses.
In the perception of magnitude_(parimāņa), we are to admit a further fourfold contact between sense and the
At the
Whe
1 BP , 53 60
BP , & SM , 165 66 3 VP , Cbap 1, 4 BP & SM , 93
5 Ibid, 54-56 23—(1117B)
