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Introduction
15
in his definition of the Pratyakşa has admitted the possibility of Nirvikalpa or what has been called the Pure Sensation by modern psychologists in addition to the Savikalpa, the developed Perception or Perception proper. The Nirvikalpa or Pure Sensation is just the state produced in our mind by the sense-organ coming in contact with the outside object and nothing more. It is in no way touched or modified by our apperception-mass or by our faculties of productive or reproductive imagination and of conception.
Is such a Pure Sensation a fact? Is it possible? It is contended that our mind is an active field of ideas and as soon as a new sensation is about to arise in it, it becomes modified by the pre-existing mass of ideas. The result is that no sensation in its pristine purity is ever possible and consequently, in the words of Ward:
"All presentation is but representation" and “The pure sensation we may regard as a psychological
myth”. What we have is always a Perception i.e. a Sensation modified by the existing mental flow. In ancient India a class of philosophers called the Sābdikas seem to have hinted at this doctrine of the impossibility of the Pure Sensation. Bhartshari says:
न सोऽस्ति प्रत्ययो लोके य: शब्दानुगमादृते।
अनुविद्धमिव ज्ञानं सर्व शब्देन भासते॥-वाक्यपदीय प्र०का० १२४ No apprehension of an Object is possible without Words i.e. without conception.
There is another class of Psychologists today who maintain that Pure Sensation is not impossible. If, the incoming sensation by its sudden and overpowering intensity eliminates for the time being traces of pre-existing ideas, the Object would be sensed in its purity. For instance, when there is a sudden deafening roar of Thunder, our mind becomes absolutely vacant for the time being and what we have then is the Pure Sensation. Pure Sensation is thus possible according to these psychologists, when the existing apperception mass becomes dead, so to say, for the time being.
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