Part 6 - Some Ontological Problems connected with the Doctrine of Perception

The perception of the class (jāti) of a percept in relation to other things may thus be regarded in the main as a difference between determinate and indeterminate perceptions. The problems of jāti and avayavāvayavl (part and whole notion) were the subjects of hot dispute in Indian philosophy. Before entering into discussion about jāti, Prabhākara first introduced the problem of avayava (part) and avayavī (whole). He argues as an exponent of svataḥprāmāṇyavāda that the proof of the true existence of anything must ultimately rest on our own consciousness, and what is distinctly recognized in consciousness must be admitted to have its existence established. Following this canon Prabhākara says that gross objects as a whole exist, since they are so perceived. The subtle atoms are the material cause and their connection (saṃyoga) is the immaterial cause (asamavāyikāraiid), and it is the latter which renders the whole altogether different from the parts of which it is composed ; and it is not necessary that all the parts should be perceived before the whole is perceived. Kumārila holds that it is due to the point of view from which we look at a thing that we call it a separate whole or only a conglomeration of parts. In reality they are identical, but when we lay stress on the notion of parts, the thing appears to be a conglomeration of them, and when we look at it from the point of view of the unity appearing as a whole, the thing appears to be a whole of which there are parts (see Ślokavārttika, Vanavāda)^[1].

Jāti, though incorporating the idea of having many units within one, is different from the conception of whole in this, that it resides in its entirety in each individual constituting that jāti (vyāsajyavṛtti), but the establishment of the existence of wholes refutes the argument that jāti should be denied, because it involves the conception of a whole (class) consisting of many parts (individuals). The class character or jāti exists because it is distinctly perceived by us in the individuals included in any particular class. It is eternal in the sense that it continues to exist in other individuals, even when one of the individuals ceases to exist.

When a new individual of that class (e.g. cow class) comes into being, a new relation of inherence is generated by which the individual is brought into relation with the class-character existing in other individuals; for inherence (samavāya) according to Prabhākara is not an eternal entity but an entity which is both produced and not produced according as the thing in which it exists is non-eternal or eternal, and it is not regarded as one as Nyāya holds, but as many, according as there is the infinite number of things in which it exists. When any individual is destroyed, the class-character does not go elsewhere, nor subsist in that individual, nor is itself destroyed, but it is only the inherence of class-character with that individual that ceases to exist. With the destruction of an individual or its production it is a new relation of inherence that is destroyed or produced. But the class-character or jāti has no separate existence apart from the individuals as Nyāya supposes. Apprehension of jāti is essentially the apprehension of the class-character of a thing in relation to other similar things of that class by the perception of the common characteristics.

But Prabhākara would not admit the existence of a highest genus sattā (being) as acknowledged by Nyāya. He argues that the existence of class-character is apprehended because we find that the individuals of a class possess some common characteristic possessed by all the heterogeneous and disparate things of the world as can give rise to the conception of a separate jāti as sattā, as demanded by the naiyāyikas. That all things are said to be sat (existing) is more or less a word or a name without the corresponding apprehension of a common quality. Our experience always gives us concrete existing individuals, but we can never experience such a highest genus as pure existence or being, as it has no concrete form which may be perceived.

When we speak of a thing as sat , we do not mean that it is possessed of any such class-characters as sattā (being); what we mean is simply that the individual has its specific existence or svarūpasattā. Thus the Nyāya view of perception as taking only the thing in its pure being apart from qualities, etc. (sanmātra-viṣayam pratyakṣam) is made untenable by Prabhākara, as according to him the thing is perceived direct with all its qualities. According to Kumārila however jāti is not something different from the individuals comprehended by it and it is directly perceived.

Kumārila’s view of jāti is thus similar to that held by Sāṃkhya, namely that when we look at an individual from one point of view (jāti as identical with the individual), it is the individual that lays its stress upon our consciousness and the notion of jāti becomes latent, but when we look at it from another point of view (the individual as identical with jāti) it is the jāti which presents itself to consciousness, and the aspect as individual becomes latent. The apprehension as jāti or as individual is thus only a matter of different points of view or angles of vision from which we look at a thing. Quite in harmony with the conception of jāti, Kumārila holds that the relation of inherence is not anything which is distinct from the things themselves in which it is supposed to exist, but only a particular aspect or phase of the things themselves (Ślokavārttika, Pratyakṣasūtra, 149, 150, abhedāt samavāyo’stu svarūpam dharmadharmiṇoḥ), Kumārila agrees with Prabhākara that jāti is perceived by the senses (tatraikabuddldnirgrāhyā jātirindriyagocarā).

It is not out of place to mention that on the evidence of Prabhākara we find that the category of viśeṣa admitted by the Kaṇāda school is not accepted as a separate category by the Mīmāṃsā on the ground that the differentiation of eternal things from one another, for which the category of viśeṣa is admitted, may very well be effected on the basis of the ordinary qualities of these things. The quality of pṛthaktva or specific differences in atoms, as inferred by the difference of things they constitute, can very well serve the purposes of viśeṣa.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

According to Sāṃkhya-Yoga a thing is regarded as the unity of the universal and the particular (sātnānyaviśeṣasamudāyo dravyam, Vyāsabhāṣya, in. 44); for there is no other separate entity which is different from them both in which they would inhere as Nyāya holds. Conglomerations can be of two kinds, namely those in which the parts exist at a distance from one another (e.g. a forest), and those in which they exist close together (nirantarā hi tadavayavāḥ), and it is this latter combination (ayutasiddhāvayava) which is called a dravya, but here also there is no separate whole distinct from the parts ; it is the parts connected in a particular way and having no perceptible space between them that is called a thing or a whole. The Buddhists as Paṇḍitāśoka has shown did not believe in any whole (avayavī) ; it is the atoms which in connection with one another appeared as a whole occupying space (paramāṇava eva hi pararūpadeśaparihāreṇotpannāḥ parasparasahitā avabhāsamānā deśavitānavanto bhavanti). The whole is thus a mere appearance and not a reality (see Avayavinirākaraṇa, Six Buddhist Nyāya Tracts). Nyāya however held that the atoms were partless (niravayava) and hence it would be wrong to say that when we see an object we see the atoms.

The existence of a whole as difierent from the parts which belong to it is directly experienced and there is no valid reason against it :

“aduṣṭakaraṇodbhūtamanāvirbhūtabādhakam
asandigdañca vijñānam katham mithyeti kathyate .”

Nyāyamañjarī, pp. 550 ff.