Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/394

37 8 Mlmli1!lsii Philosophy [CH. with the sense organs, and (4) of the manas with the soul. The objects of perception are of three kinds,( I) substances,(2) qualities, (3) jati or class. The material substances are tangible objects of earth, fire, water, air in large dimensions (for in their fine atomic states they cannot be perceived). The qualities are colour, taste, smell, touch, number, dimension, separateness, conjunction, dis- junction, priority, posteriority, pleasure, pain, desire, aversion, and effort 1. It may not be out of place here to mention in conclusion that Kumarila BhaHa was rather undecided as to the nature of the senses or of their contact with the objects. Thus he says that the senses may be conceived either as certain functions or activities, or as entities having the capacity of revealing things without coming into actual contact with them, or that they might be entities which actually come in contact with their objects 2 , and he prefers this last view as being more satisfactory. Indeterminate and determinate perception. There are two kinds of perception in two stages, the first stage is called nirvikalpa (indeterminate) and the second savikalpa (determinate). The nirvikalpa perception of a thing is its per- ception at the first moment of the association of the senses and their objects. Thus Kumarila says that the cognition that appears first is a mere iilocana or simple perception, called non-determinate pertaining to the object itself pure and simple, and resembling the cognitions that the new-born infant has of things around himself. In this cognition neither the genus nor the differentia is presented to consciousness; all that is present there is the individual wherein these two subsist. This view of indeterminate perception may seem in some sense to resemble the Buddhist view which defines it as being merely the specific individuality (svalaka1Ja) and regards it as being the only valid element in perception, whereas all the rest are conceived as being imaginary 1 See Prakarazapa"icikii, pp. 52 etc., and Dr GaJiganatha jha's Prabhiikarami- mii,!lsii, pp. 35 etc. 2 Slokaviir//ika, see PratyakfasiUl'a, 40 etc., and NJ 1 ii)'aral1liikara on it. It may be noted in this connection that Sarp.khya- V oga did not think like Nyaya that the senses actually wcnt out to meet the objects (priif'yakiiritva) but held that there was a special kind of functioning (vr//i) by virtue of which the senses could grasp cven such distant objects as thc sun and the stars. It is the functioning of the sense that reached thc objects. The naturc of this vrtti is not further clearly eXplained and Parthasarathi objects to it as bcing almost a different category (tal/viintal'a).