A History of Indian Philosophy, Volume 1Dasgupta, Surendranath
Religion
A History of Indian Philosophy, Volume 1
Dasgupta, Surendranath
Hindu philosophy; India -- Religion
to the sense
(_pûrvad@r@s@tâparad@r@s@tañcârthamekîkurvadvijñânamasannihitavi@sayam
pûrvad@r@s@tasyâsannihitatvât_). In all illusory perceptions it is the
sense which is affected either by extraneous or by inherent physiological
causes. If the senses are not perverted they are bound to present the
object correctly. Perception thus means the correct presentation through
the senses of an object in its own uniqueness as containing only those
features which are its and its alone (_svalak@sa@nam_). The validity of
knowledge consists in the sameness that it has with the objects presented
by it (_arthena saha yatsârûpyam sâd@rs'yamasya jñânasya tatpramâ@namiha_).
But the objection here is that if our percept is only
similar to the external object then this similarity is a thing which
is different from the presentation, and thus perception becomes
invalid. But the similarity is not different from the percept which
appears as being similar to the object. It is by virtue of their
sameness that we refer to the object by the percept (_taditi sârûpyam
tasya vas'ât_) and our perception of the object becomes possible.
It is because we have an awareness of blueness that we speak of
having perceived a blue object. The relation, however, between
the notion of similarity of the perception with the blue object and
the indefinite awareness of blue in perception is not one of
causation but of a determinant and a determinate
(_vyavasthâpyavyavasthâpakabhâvena_). Thus it is the same cognition
which in one form stands as signifying the similarity with the object
of perception and is in another indefinite form the awareness as the
percept (_tata ekasya vastuna@h kiñcidrûpam pramâ@nam kiñcitpramâ@naphalam
na virudhyate_). It is on account of this similarity
with the object that a cognition can be a determinant of the
definite awareness (_vyavasthâpanaheturhi sârûpyam_), so that by
the determinate we know the determinant and thus by the
similarity of the sense-datum with the object {_pramâ@na_) we come
to think that our awareness has this particular form as "blue"
(_pramâ@naphala_). If this sameness between the knowledge and its
object was not felt we could not have spoken of the object from
the awareness (_sârûpyamanubhûtam vyavasthâpanahetu@h_). The
object generates an awareness similar to itself, and
it is this correspondence that can lead us to the realization
of the object so presented by right knowledge [Footnote ref l].
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