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contradistinction from the Anindriya-nimitta Mati-jñāna which is depndent on the operation of the mind alone. The Indriya-nimitta Mati-jñāna is of five modes in as much as perception is either Visual or Olfactory, or Tactile or Auditory or that through the Tongue. - The Jaina psychologists are far from maintaining that a fully developed perception is a simple psychosis suddenly taking the place of sensation. As a matter of fact, they point out that no less than four processes are involved in the genesis of a perception, properly so called. Their analysis of perception will be found not to differ materially from that given by the modern psychologists of Europe. Perception is developed from Sensation. The Jaina writers express this by saying that perception is of four modes. Their own description, however, shows that we are justified in looking upon these four processes as stages in the progressive development of perception, rather than its four modes or types. The four processes are,
“Avagraha or Grasp, Ihā or Attention, Avāya or Determination and Dhāraņā or Retention”.
-Ibid, 15 The description of these four processes of Perception may not detain us long. (1) Avagraha is Darśana, only a little bit advanced. If in Darśana we have the sensation that our senses are affected, in Avagraha we have the consciousness that something outside is affecting the sense-organs. What that something is, Avagraha does not tell us. It consists simply in grasping a vague indeterminate something disturbing the consciousness. It gives only a feeling of what the modern psychologists call, “Extensity' (as distinguished from "Extension") or as James calls it, a feeling of “Roominess". Hence the Jaina thinkers (e.g. Umā-Svāti) choose to say that "Vyanjanā” i.e. something vague and indeterminate, though manifest, and not “Artha" or determined object is the matter of Avagraha. In this connection, they point out that Visual perception and Introspective perception, Çakşu-Indriya-Nimitta and Anindriya-Nimitta, can have no Vyanjanā Avagraha stage.
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