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THE DEFINITION OF PERCEPTION 119 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 cog-
nition 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 so-
called perceptions of individual objects like the jar, tree, etc.
(samv峁泃ij帽膩na).' 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 (sa峁僾峁泃i-
j帽膩na) 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 (j膩ti) underlying the
aggregates of parts and qualities constituting individual objects.
Dign膩ga, the greatest Bauddha logician (circa 500 A. D.),
brings out the implications of Vasubandhu's definition of per-
ception. If perceptual cognition is solely determined by its
object, it must be wholly given and not anywise constructed
by the mind. Hence Dign膩ga 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 Pram膩峁嘺samuccaya, Chapter 1.