3.4. Perception according to others

[Full title: 2. The Navya-Naiyāyika Theory of Perception—Perception according to others]

Perception According to Śivāditya

Śivāditya a scholar of Navya-Naiyāyika, school also maintains that perception is direct or immediate knowledge. Right knowledge by means of perception is the cognition of truth produced by an instrumental cause which is not itself cognizable. Perceptive knowledge has for its cause the sense-organs and their contact with objects. Senseorgan being supersenuous (atindriyam) is the special cause of direct perception. Atindriyam i.e. being special cause of direct perception is inserted to eliminate inference. “Manasa” or contemplation which also leads to direct perception is not “atindriya” (supersenuous).^[1] It also eliminates God who is both an instrument of direct perception supersenuous but is not indriya.

Perception According to Varadarāja

Varadarāja who is a scholar of Navya-Naiyāyika and the author of Tārkikarakṣā maintains that “perception is immediate valid knowledge.”^[2]

Perception According to Keśava Miśra

According to Keśava Miśra “the instrument which gives rise to direct valid cognition is called perception.”^[3] The definition only stated the particular condition of perception. According to him, the source of knowledge is sometimes a sense organ, the contact between sense organ and object, and a judgement. In the case of sense organ the result is a non-propositional judgement. In such cases the sense-objectcontact is the intervening operation (avāntaravyāpāra). In the case when the senseobject-contact is the instrument, the result is a propositional judgement. Lastly, when the instrument is the non propositional judgment, the results are taken to be the reactions of attraction or repulsion to the object. Here the intervening operation is the propositional judgement.

Perception According to Annam Bhaṭṭa

According to Annam Bhaṭṭa, “perception is the peculiar cause of perceptive knowledge. It is the perceptive knowledge which arises out of the contact of the sense organ with the object.”^[4] In Annam Bhaṭṭa’s definition of perception, “the term indriya is that which, not being the seat (anāśraya) of a manifest (udbhūta) specific quality (viśeṣaguṇa) other than sound is the seat of that conjunction with manas (manaṇsaṃyoga) which is the condition of cognition (jñāna karaṇa).”^[5] For Annam Bhaṭṭa perception is both the source and the resulting knowledge. The source is defined as sākṣātkārajñanakaranam.^[6] Others again define perception as prataykṣapramākaraṇam or sākṣātkāripramākaraṇam; but he seems to have used jñāna in order to insert both right and wrong apprehensions.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

J. S. Jetly, Saptapadārthī, pp.62-67.

[2]:

aparokṣapramāvyaptaṃ pratyakṣam. TR., p.57.

[3]:

sākṣatkāri pramākaraṇam pratyakṣam. S.R. Iyer, Tarkabhāṣā, p.36.

[4]:

Y.V. Athalye and M.R. Bodas, op.cit., p.211.

[5]:

Ibid.

[6]:

Ibid.