Nirvikalpaka Pratyaksha (study)
by Sujit Roy | 2013 | 40,056 words
This essay studies Nirvikalpaka Pratyaksha or “Indeterminate perception” primarily based on Nyaya Philosophy and Bauddha philosophy. Pratyaksa is that cognition which is produced by the contact of a sense organ with an object. It is a direct cognition of reality which is not derived through the medium or instrumentality of any other cognition....
Chapter 5e - Nirvikalpaka Pratyakṣa in Mīmāṃsā
According to the Mīmāṃsakas, there are two kinds of pratyakṣa in two stages; the first stage is called nirvikalpaka and the second stage is called savikalpaka pratyakṣa. Jaimini (400 B.C) the author of the Mīmāṃsā-sūtra and the founder of the Mīmāṃsā system, accepts the three pramāṇas, viz., pratyakṣa, anumāna, and śabda.[1] Upavarṣa (350 A.D), Śavara (300 A.D) and Kumārila (700 A.D) recognize six pramāṇas, viz., pratyakṣa, anumāna, śabda, upamāna, arthāpati, and anupalabdhi. Prabhākara (650 A.D) accepts the first five only, since he does not consider negation (a-bhāva) as a separate category,[2] and anupalabdhi as the means of knowing it.
Jaimini defines pratyakṣa as:
“sat saṃprayoge puruṣasyendriyāṇāṃ buddhijanma tatpratyakṣamanimittaṃ vidyamānopalambhanāt”[3]
I.e. pratyakṣa is the cognition produced in the self by the right intercourse of the sense-organs with existing objects.
In other words, perceptual cognition produced by the contact of the self with the mind, of the mind with the sensory organs and of the sensory organs with the object. It is produced by real objects existing at present and acting upon the sense-organs. Past or future objects, which are nonexistent at present, cannot act upon the sense-organs, and produce pratyakṣa. When there is a right intercourse of the sense-organs with their objects, valid perception is produced. When there is a wrong intercourse between them, it is not produced.
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
Ibid. p. 349.
[2]:
History of Philosophy Eastern and Western, Vol-I, by S. Radhakrishnan, p. 259.