Part 2 - The Buddhist definition of perception

The Buddhists define perception as the unerring cognition of a given sensum in complete isolation from all ideata. In it the object of cognition is a unique individual (svalaksana) and the process of cognition is a mere sensing without any element of ideation (kalpana) in it. Vasubandhu, a Bauddha logician of the Yogacara school (circa 480 A. D.), characterises perception as a cognition that is directly produced by the object, of which it is the cognition." The cognition of fire, for example, is a perception, if and in so far as it is produced and wholly ¹ A System of Logic, p. 4. 2 The New Realism, pp. 66-67. 3 The Problems of Philosophy, Chapter xi ; Our Knowledge of the External World, p. 72. Pratyaksam kalpanapodhamabhrantam, Nyayahindu, Chapter I. * Tato'rthadvijnanam pratyaksam, Nyaya-varttika & NVTK., 1. 1. 4.

conditioned by fire as an existent fact. On the other hand, the 'cognition of silver' in the presence of an oyster-shell, cannot be called perception, since it is not caused by the object, of which it claims to be the cognition. The silver is non-existent at the time and place at which it seems to be perceived and so cannot causally determine the cognition in question. So also the inferential cognition of fire is distinguished from perception by the fact that it is not produced directly and exclusively by fire as an objective fact. The inferential knowledge depends on such other conscious and unconscious conditions as the cognition of smoke, the association between smoke and fire, memory of the relation between the two and so on. For the same reason, the Buddhists deny the perceptual character of the socalled perceptions of individual objects like the jar, tree, etc. (samvrtijnana).' What we directly perceive is not the jar or the tree as a unity of the universal and the particular, but some quality or part of it. What is thus directly sensed is next combined with certain images and ideas of other associated qualities or parts and thereby produces the complex cognition of a jar or a tree. In fact, such complex cognitions (samvrtijnana) are not perceptions, since these are not directly produced by the object alone. Rather, they are wrong cognitions based on the hypothesis of universal essences (jati) underlying the aggregates of parts and qualities constituting individual objects. Dignaga, the greatest Bauddha logician (circa 500 A. D.), brings out the implications of Vasubandhu's definition of perception. If perceptual cognition is solely determined by its object, it must be wholly given and not anywise constructed by the mind. Hence Dignaga defines perception as a cognition which is not at all subjectively determined and is not modified by ideas or concepts (kalpana). The concepts of name, class, quality, action and relation do not enter into the perception of an object. What is perceived by us is a unique individual that does not admit of any description by concepts and words. 1 Ibid. 2 Vide Pramanasamuccaya, Chapter 1.

t is just what it is immediately sensed to be. Words and concepts express such aspects of things as are general or common to many things. But a thing is an individual in so far as it excludes all other things from within itself. Hence what is individual is to be directly felt or intuited, but not expressed by words or concepts. From this it follows that perception is just the cognition of an immediately given datum and is completely free from all subjective or conceptual determinations. It is a pure sensation which cannot be properly described or embodied in verbal judgments.' v v The Buddhist definition of perception has been criticised and rejected by the Naiyayikas. It has been pointed out by them that Vasubandhu's definition of perception is too wide. If by perception we are to mean a cognition which is objectively determined (tato'rthadvijnanam), all true knowledge will have to be regarded as perception. As Bosanquet has rightly pointed out, reality is operative in truth." Thus a true inference has an objective basis in so far as the conclusion expresses a real relation between two things. So we may say that what is validly inferred is an objective fact which is causally efficient towards the inferential cognition. Similar is the case with the other kinds of valid knowledge. Even the wrong cognition of silver in a shell is not without some objective basis. The wrong judgment, 'that is silver,' is based on the 'that' as an objective fact. Further, on the Bauddha view of universal momentariness (ksanikavada), we do not see how perception can have an objective basis. The object being the cause of perception must be antecedent to it. So when the perception is or appears its momentary cause, namely, the object, must cease to exist. The object cannot therefore be the cause of perception. But if perception be not directly produced by the object, we cannot call it perception at all." 1 Nyayabindutika, PP. 7-12. 2 Logic, Vol. II, P. 289. 3 Nyaya-varttika & Nyaya-varttika-tatparya-tika, 1. 1. 4.

ater Bauddha logicians like Dignaga, Dharmakirti and others reduce perception to a mere sensation free from all conceptual determination. This, the Naiyayikas think, is logically indefensible and arbitrary. None of our ordinary perceptions is a pure sensing of the given datum. On the other hand, perception is the interpretation of sensations by associated images and ideas. It is now a commonplace of philosophy that "perception contains not merely sensuous and revived. images, but a large element of meaning as well." Perception is not, as the Buddhists think, an unmeaning sensation of an indeterminate real called svalaksana. It has a definite meaning and refers to a determinate object as that is revealed through sensations. It is only because the Buddhists arbitrarily deny the meaning element in perception that they are forced to exclude the complex cognitions of a jar, tree, etc. (samvrtijnana), from the range of perception. As a matter of fact, these are as good perceptions as any other. If, however, we allow with the Buddhists that perception is a matter of pure sensation, we do not understand how it can at all be conceived or logically defined. A pure sensation is an unreal abstraction and not a psychological fact. We cannot point to any of our actual experiences as a case of pure sensation without any element of ideation in it. Such an experience, even if it were real, can hardly be described, far less defined. The Buddhist definition of perception is self-contradictory (vyahata) in so far as it tries to define and determine what is undefinable and indeterminate. Just as what is perfectly unknowable cannot even be known as unknowable, so we cannot consistently determine a perfectly indeterminate experience as perception." 1 Essays in Critical Realism, p. 91. 2 Nyaya-varttika & Nyaya-varttika-tatparya-tika, 1. 1. 4; Nyayamanjari, pp. 92-93, 97-100; Sastradipika, pp. 38-39. The notion of an ineffable sensum, like the Buddhist's svalaksana, has also been repudiated of late by some eminent Western thinkers like Whitehead, Heidegger, Rickert, Bosanquet, Dewey. 'Whitehead speaks of it as the sensationalist fallacy and Heidegger as the illusory notion of mere givenness, untinged with the "concern" which he holds to be constitutive of experience throughout. See Charles Hartshorne's article on "The Intelligibility of Sensa tions" in The Monist, July, 1934, pp. 161-85. 16 (O.P. 103)