Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 1

Author(s): Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 60

PERCEPTUAL AND EXTRA-PERCEPTUAL COGNITION
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negation of the opposite with affirmation of the positive fact, as Spinoza observes determinatio est negatio. This is done by judgement which is facilitated by language. Until the indeterminate cognition is determined by judgement, it is as good as non-existent and so the subject will have no knowledge. In order to avoid this deadlock it must be admitted that the indeterminate cognition somehow stimulates the conceptual judgement through recollection of the word. By parity of reasoning it may be argued that the object as the alleged condition of indeterminate cognition may stimulate the memory-impression and give rise to perceptual judgement without the interposition of indeterminate cognition in between them. You have contended that conceptual knowledge is independent of the object and is only an imaginary construction and so like other imaginary constructions it is liable to be superseded by another such subjective judgement. But this is not a fair contention. You cannot place the perceptual judgement on the same level with imaginary construction since it is generated and controlled by the relevant sense-organ and the objective datum.
It has been shown that though word is not a necessary consti. tuent of the object, there is nothing to obstruct its association with the perceived object. The jar concept in the perceptual judgement is associated with its expressive word as a matter of necessity or result of mental habit. If the association of word is banned in perceptual cognition it will not be determined as the cognition of a particular object, say, a jar and not of an other, say, a chair. So the denial of . verbal association with a perceived datum culminates in the denial of t he possibility of perceptual cognition itself, since it will remain undetermined and undistinguished, and as such be of no avail. It is a surd and the Buddhist has not vouchsafed a satisfactory explanation.
The Naiya yika theory of perception is not subjected to such a meticulous examination by the commentator. He only differs from the Nyāya and Mimāmsă school in respect of the nature of emergence of perceptual cognition. The Jaina believes that all cognitions are latently present in the conscious soul and perceptual cognition is not a new product, but rather a case of discovery happening on the elimination of the veil of ignorance. The Jaina holds with the Sankhya that a previously non-existent fact cannot be made existent by any amount of extertion. And this is based on the theory called satkāryavāda, the production of the pre-existent effect.
We think it necessary to draw the attention to the division of perceptual cognition into (l'indeterminate simple cognition unassociated with verbal designation (avyapayadeśyam) and (2) another of the