Pramanas And Language Dispute Between Dinnaga Dharmakirti And Akalanka

Author(s): Piotr Balcerowicz
Publisher: Piotr Balcerowicz

Page 26

368
PIOTR BALCEROWICZ
For Akalanka, clarity consists in the way reality is presented in cognition:
In contrast to inference etc., the clarity of [this perception), in the case of discernment (becoming aware of the object), is recognised to be the representing of the particular. What is different from this is non-clarity (in the case of discernment].47
As a matter of fact, in the above manner Akalanka modifies and disambiguates Siddhasena Mahāmati's obscure and tautological definiens: the way of] determination of the cognoscible (meya-viniścaya) of NA 1 (p. 360, and n. 32). Each act of perception - either (1) conventional and sensory, (2) internal and mental, or (3) absolute and extra-sensory - grasps the particular thing, or individual aspect, and this ‘unmediated access to the individual' is clarity, or lucidity. In other words, perception leads the cogniser to clearly discernible and uniquely identifiable entities that are amenable, at least in theory, to the cogniser's actions. Inference, verbal cognition etc., on the other hand, do not bring the cognitive agent to clearly distinguishable individual features of a thing. What is represented in such inferential or verbal cognitive acts are ideas or concepts that emerge as the contents of indirect cognition. Ideas themselves, classes that correspond to the ideas or words expressing the ideas cannot be acted upon individually. For this very reason such a cognition based on ideas and words is 'bereft of clarity (avisada, aspașta), inasmuch as it delivers merely a vague and imprecise notion of what actual individuals, amenable in practical actions, are denoted by words or are implied by inferences. Such an unclear (avisada) cognition merely extends over the whole range of individuals and refers to each of them in precisely the same manner, by pointing to their general common feature, and making them all indistinguishable from each other in our cognition. Thus, indirect cognition reveals no particular thing that is the designatum of a term or an actual source of the idea presented in the cognition. On the contrary, on its basis it is not at all possible to make any practically relevant distinction among singular items aggregated into a conceptual bundle'. And this is precisely what is involved in the notion of lack of clarity' (avaiếadya) or 'absence of lucidity' (aspastatva).
As a justification for the need to introduce another criterion for genuine perception, other than its conceptual character, Akalarka
47 LT 4: anumănâdy-atirekena višeșa-pratibhāsanam/ tad-vaiśadya matam buddher avaišadyam atah param //