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From the Nyaya standpoint perception is an immediate valid cognition of reality, due to some kind of sense-object contact. As such, perception involves four operative conditions or causes, namely, objects, senses, mind and self. What objects can be perceived and how they are perceived by us, we shall see in the next chapter. Here we propose to consider, from the Naiyayika standpoint, the psychological questions as to the nature and function of sense, mind and self in perception. It is generally admitted that perception is primarily conditioned by the activity of the senses in relation to some objects. Hence perception is usually defined in terms of sense-stimulation. Even those who refuse to do so have to admit senseactivity as a factor conditioning all perception. But there is some difference of opinion as to the exact nature of the senses and their functions in perception. According to the Buddhists, the senses are the external organs (golaka) occupying different parts of the surface of the body.' The visual sense, for example, is the pupil of the eye, since objects can be seen only when the pupil is in order but not otherwise. Thus the endorgans are entrusted by the Buddhists with the function of perception and, therefore, spoken of as the senses. For the Jainas a sense is the physical organ with a specific energy (sakti). According to the Sankhyas, the senses are not physical bodies like the pupil of the eye, but modifications of the subtle material principle called ahankara. They think that a physical (bhautika) organ cannot account for the perception 2 1 Golakasyendriyatvamiti Bauddhah, Nyayasutra-vrtti, 3. 1. 30. 2 Vide Prameyakamalamartanda, p. 61.

of distant objects. In perception the senses must function in direct contact with the objects of perception. But a physical organ like the eye-pupil cannot have direct contact with an object lying at a distance or behind a glass. This is possible only if the sense organ be all-pervading in character and not a limited physical substance. So the Sankhyas think that the senses are modifications of a subtle all-pervading matter (ahankarika) and are themselves all-pervading in character." The Nyaya rejects both the Bauddha and the Sankhya view about the nature of the senses. It agrees with the Mimamsa and the Vedanta in holding that the senses are neither the end-organs nor modifications of any all-pervading subtle matter. According to these systems the external senses are material substances constituted by the physical elements (bhautika) and localised in the different end-organs." In the Nyaya system, a sense is defined as a supersensible organ of knowledge having its locus in the animal organism." A sense cannot itself be sensed or perceived. The existence of the senses is not a matter of direct perception for us. It is by means of inference or reasoning that we know their existence. The eye cannot perceive itself. But that there is a visual sense, follows from the general law that every function is conditioned by some organ. So it has been said that a sense is what cannot be sensed but must be inferred as an organ necessary for the function of perception. Another definition of sense, given by some Naiyayikas (e.g. Gangesa and Visvanatha), is that it is the medium of a contact between the mind and an object to produce such knowledge as is different from memory." This definition, however, is not applicable to mind as a sense, since it cannot be said to be the medium of contact between itself Ahamkaropadanakamindriyam, Tattvakaumudi, 26. Cf. Nyayasutra-vrtti, ibid. 2 Nyaya-sutra, 1. 1. 12; Vedanta-paribhasa, Ch. VII; Sastradipika, p. 36. Sarirasamjuktam jnanakaranamatindriyamindriyam, Tarkabhasa, P. 19. Cf. H. H. Price, Perception, p. 25: "By 'senses' I do not mean 'sense-organs' but 'sense-faculties', i.e. the power of being acquainted with this or that kind of sense-datum.' " 4 Siddhanta-muktavali, 58; Tattvachintamani, I, pp 550-51.

and objects like pleasure and pain. The Sastradipika¹ defines sense as what produces a clear and distinct knowledge of the object it is brought in contact with. This definition holds good with regard to all the senses including the mind. According to the Nyaya and the Mimamsa, there are six sense organs. Of these some are called external and some internal (bahyamabhyantaram). There is only one internal sense called manas or mind. This will be separately dealt with in another section. There are five external senses, namely, the olfactory, the gustatory, the visual, the cutaneous and the auditory. These senses are physical in character, because they are constituted by the physical elements." But for their physical character we cannot explain the limitation of perception to a particular time and space. If the senses were, as the Sankhyas say, non-physical and all-pervading principles, we should have simultaneous perceptions of all objects in the world. Each sense is capable of revealing the existence of one particular class of objects. A sense organ is constituted by the physical element whose qualities are sensed by it. It possesses the specific attribute of its constituent physical element and is therefore capable of perceiving the qualities belonging to it.³ The olfactory sense (ghrana) is the organ of apprehending smell. It must have the quality of smell in it in order to apprehend smell in other things. As such, it is constituted by the earth, to which smell originally belongs as an attribute. The sense of smell is said to have its seat in the forepart of the nasal cavity (nasagravarti). This, however, is contradicted by modern psychology which holds that 'the organ of smell is a mucous membrane lining the roof and part of the walls of the extreme upper portion of the nasal cavities'." The gustatory sense (rasana) is the condition of tasteVide p. 36. 2 Nyaya-sutra and Sastradipika, ibid. 3 Nyayasutra-vrtti, 3. I. 32. 4 Tarkabhasa, ib. 5 Vide Titchener, A Text-Book of Psychology.

sensations. It is constituted by the physical element called water, because it is possessed of the specific attribute of that element, viz. taste. It is located in the forepart of the tongue (jihvagravarti). But the localisation of the sense of taste in the tip of the tongue does not agree with the finding of scientific psychology. From it we learn that the end-organs of taste, i.e. the taste bulbs occur largely in the posterior part of the tongue. The tip of the tongue is especially sensitive to sweet taste. such, it may be said to be the organ of certain tastes." As The visual sense (caksu) is the ground of colour-sensations and is itself coloured. It has its locus in the pupil of the eye. It is constituted by a luminous substance called tejas or light. In the case of the visual sense the constituent element of light has no manifest form and touch (anudbhutarupasparsa). The sun as a luminous orb has both form and touch manifest in it. Hence it is that the one cannot be, while the other is, perceived by us. The account of the visual sense given here is in substantial agreement with the modern theory of vision, although it lacks most of its finer details. It will have the support of modern optics which recognises the dependence of visual sensation on the energy of light and the presence of a colouring matter behind the lens, and treats the retina as the organ of vision." The cutaneous sense (tuak) is the source of touch-sensations and temperature-sensations. It is constituted by the physical element air, because, like the air, it manifests the quality of touch. The locus or the end-organ of the sense of touch is the whole skin of the body, from head to foot, outside and inside its surface." From a common-sense standpoint no distinction is here made between the different sensations of touch or pressure and those of warmth and cold. In truth, the cutaneous sense is highly complex. Many psychologists distinguish between four cutaneous senses, namely, those of pressure, op. cit. 2 op. cit. 3 Tarkabhasa, pp. 20, 24.

" THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PERCEPTION " 135 warmth, cold, and pain.' The Naiyayikas do not go so far in their account of the cutaneous sense, but describe both pressure and temperature as touch sensations. Nor do they subscribe to the view that the sense of touch is the primitive sense, from which the other external senses develop by increasing differentiation. 'Touch," Aristotle observed, is the mother of the senses. Modern psychologists also think that "starting from this mode of sensibility as a basis the other senses develop by processes of increasing complexity and refinement." The Naiyayikas oppose this hypothesis on the ground that the sense of touch cannot, in any degree, perform the function of the other senses in those who are deprived of them." " The auditory sense (srotra) is the source of sensations of sound. It has its seat in the drum of the ear. It is possessed of the quality of sound. As such, it is identical with a portion of the physical element akasa, as that is present in and limited by the ear-hole. It is not a separate substance, but is a limited portion of akasa itself, since the quality of sound belongs originally to akasa. According to the Vedanta, however, sound is not exclusively a property of akasa, since it is perceived in the air and other elements as well. But it admits that the sense of hearing is constituted by the physical element of akasa. The Mimamsa differes here from both the Nyaya and the Vedanta in holding that the auditory sense is a portion of space (digbhaga) enclosed within the aural cavity." Thus all the three systems agree in holding that the five external senses are physical entities constituted by the physical elements. 5 To the above list of the six senses, recognised by the Nyaya and the Mimarsa, the Sankhya system adds five other senses. These are the five senses of action (karmendriya). They are called speech, hands, feet, rectum and the sex-organ, and 1 Titchener, op. cit. 2 Hollingworth, Psychology, p. 456. 3 Nyaya-Bhasya, 3. 1. 51-63. 4 Tarkabhasa, p. 20. 5 Vedanta-paribhasa, Ch. VII. 鈥� Sastradipika, p. 36.

perform respectively the functions of speaking, prehension, locomotion, evacuation and reproduction.' Thus the Sankhya gives us a list of eleven sense-organs. The Vedanta accepts this with one exception. It excludes the mind or antahkarana from the list of the senses." The Nyaya objects to this long list on the ground that the assumption of a sense for every function will lead to countless senses. If by sense we mean, as we should, a bodily organ of some special kind of perception (saksatpratitisadhana), then the organs of action cannot be called sense organs. They do not give us any perceptions of a new thing or quality other than those connected with the six senses of smell, taste, sight, touch, hearing and the mind." The Naiyayikas' enumeration of the senses, it will be seen, is different from that usually given in Western psychology. Of the six senses enumerated by them, mind as an internal sense finds no place in modern psychology, while a number of internal senses is added to the five external senses recognised by them. These are the kinasthetic senses. Then we are told that there are certain organic sensations which are derived from the internal organs of the body. These too will have to be regarded as senses if we seriously accept the view of organic sensations. Further, the cutaneous sense is subdivided into the pressure sense, the temperature senses and the pain sense. Of these, the first two, namely, the pressure and temperature senses are included by the Naiyayikas in the sense of touch, since, according to them, warmth and cold are only different kinds of touch sensations. Hence in addition to the five senses of the Naiyayikas, we have to admit a pain sense, several kinasthetic senses and the vital or organic senses. These are supposed to be necessary to explain the sensation of pain, the perceptions of movement and position, resistance and weight, and other organic sensations connected with the abdominal organs, the digestive and urinary systems, the circulatory and respiratory systems and the genital systems. 1 Sankhyakarika, 26 & 28. 2 Vedanta-paribhasa, Ch. VII. 3 Nyaya-varttika-tatparya-tika, p. 531; Nyayamanjari, pp. 482 f.

t seems to me, however, that this long list of the senses, to which Western psychology commits us, has its basis in an unsound epistemology. A careful epistemological analysis of what are called sensations will show that they are cognitive mental states which acquaint us with the qualities of things. A sensation has, therefore, a cognitive value and has reference to some given datum. The cognitive value of a sensation lies. in its being the basis of our perception of the thing which produces the sensation. Another characteristic of sensations is that we can have images corresponding to them at the time when they are past. Judged by such criteria, it is very doubtful if we can legitimately speak of a sensation of pain or of kinasthetic and organic sensations. While touch, warmth and cold are qualities of things, pain cannot be referred to anything as its quality. We feel pain indeed, but do not perceive anything as painful, just as we perceive a rose as red when it produces the sensation of red in us. We can hardly form an image of a pain previously felt in the same way in which we can image a previously experienced colour or sound. Hence pain is better characterised as a feeling, rather than as a sensation. Similarly the so-called organic sensations may be shown to be feelings aroused by certain states of the vital organs, or by the ordinary sensations of pressure, warmth, etc. Thus according to Titchener,' 'the sense of satiety, of a full stomach would come from an upward pressure against the diaphragm. Thirst appears as a diffuse pressure or as a blend of pressure and warmth. There are times when the separate heart-beats are clearly sensed as dull throbbing pressure.' Titchener says further that the special sensations of the genital system appear first as an excitement, then as gratification and thirdly as relief. But all these are plainly feelings, and not sensations in the proper sense. Lastly, what are called kinasthetic sensations are analysable into certain feelings and ordinary sensations produced by different kinds of bodily activity. 'A 1 Vide A Text-Book of Psychology, pp. 160-92. 18 (O.P. 103)

muscular sensation is ordinarily a dull and diffuse pressure upon the skin. With increasing intensity it takes on a dragging character and sometimes passes into dull pain. 'The articular sensation is said to be a massive complex of sensations in the wrist-joint whose quality is not distinguishable from that of cutaneous pressure.' The perceptions of the movement and position of our limbs, with closed eyes, and those of the weight and resistance of other bodies are said to be based upon the articular sensations. But we have no specific sensations of movement and position, resistance and weight. In fact, none of them can be treated as a sense-datum like colour and sound. Hence we require no separate senses for their perceptions. If, then, the so-called muscular and articular sensations can be analysed into sensations of pressure and feelings of strain and pain, we see no reason why we must admit separate senses for them. We admit different external senses for the different kinds of sensations, like colour, sound, etc., because we cannot analyse any of them into any other. The sensations of one sense are quite distinct from those of any other sense. But even those who speak of the kinasthetic senses would admit that the kinasthetic sensations are, in general, very like the cutaneous, and, in one case, indistinguishable from cutaneous pressure. Supposing that there are kinasthetic senses, we ask: What sensa or sense-qualities do they acquaint us with? Certainly, movement and position, resistance and weight are not sensa like colours and sounds. There being no other distinct sensa for them, we are to say that the kinasthetic sensations, like the alleged sensation of innervation, are really feelings produced by bodily movements. Accordingly, the so-called kinasthetic senses will have to be regarded as organs of action and not of sensation.