Some Ontological Problems connected with the Doctrine of Perception
The perception of the class (jati) of a percept in relation to other things may thus be regarded in the main as a difference between determinate and indeterminate perceptions. The problems of jati and avayavavayavi (part and whole notion) were the subjects of hot dispute in Indian philosophy. Before entering into discussion about jati, Prabhakara first introduced the problem of avayava (part) and avayavi (whole).
He argues as an exponent of svatah-pramanyavada that the proof of the true existence of anything must ultimately rest on our own consciousness, and what is distinctly recognized in consciousness must be admitted to have its existence established. Following this canon Prabhakara says that gross objects as a whole exist, since they are so perceived. The subtle atoms are the material cause and their connection (samyoga) is the immaterial cause (asamavayikarana), and it is the latter which renders the whole altogether different from the parts of which it is composed; and it is not necessary that all the parts should be perceived before the whole is perceived. Kumarila holds that it is due to the point of view from which we look at a thing that we call it a separate whole or only a conglomeration of parts. In reality they are identical, but when we lay stress on the notion of parts, the thing appears to be a conglomeration of them, and when we look at it from the point of view of the unity appearing as a whole, the thing appears to be a whole of which there are parts (see Shlokavarttika, Vanavada) (1).
Jati, though incorporating the idea of having many units within one, is different from the conception of whole in this, that it resides in its entirety in each individual constituting that jati (vyashajyavritti), but the establishment of the existence of wholes refutes the argument that jati should be denied, because it involves the conception of a whole (class) consisting of many parts (individuals). The class character or jati exists because it is distinctly perceived by us in the individuals included in any particular class. It is eternal in the sense that it continues to exist in other individuals, even when one of the individuals ceases to exist.
When a new individual of that class (e g. cow class) comes into being, a new relation of inherence is generated by which the individual is brought into relation with the class-character existing in other individuals, for inherence (samavaya) according to Prabhakara is not an eternal entity but an entity which is both produced and not produced according as the thing in which it exists is non-eternal or eternal, and it is not regarded as one as Nyaya holds, but as many, according as there is the infinite number of things in which it exists. When any individual is destroyed, the class-character does not go elsewhere, nor subsist in that individual, nor is itself destroyed, but it is only the inherence of class-character with that individual that ceases to exist. With the destruction of an individual or its production it is a new relation of inherence that is destroyed or produced. But the class-character or jati has no separate existence apart from the individuals as Nyaya supposes. Apprehension of jati is essentially the apprehension of the class-character of a thing in relation to other similar things of that class by the perception of the common characteristics. But Prabhakara would not admit the existence of a highest genus satta (being) as acknowledged by Nyaya. He argues that the existence of class-character is apprehended because we find that the individuals of a class possess some common characteristic possessed by all the heterogeneous and disparate things of the world as can give rise to the conception of a separate jati as satta, as demanded by the naiyayikas.
That all things are said to be sat (existing) is more or less a word or a name without the corresponding apprehension of a common quality. Our experience always gives us concrete existing individuals, but we can never experience such a highest genus as pure existence or being, as it has no concrete form which may be perceived. When we speak of a thing as sat, we do not mean that it is possessed of any such class-characters as satta (being); what we mean is simply that the individual has its specific existence or svarupasatta.
Thus the Nyaya view of perception as taking only the thing in its pure being apart from qualities, etc, (sanmatra-vishayam pratyaksham) is made untenable by Prabhakara, as according to him the thing is perceived direct with all its qualities. According to Kumarila however jati is not something different from the individuals comprehended by it and it is directly perceived. Kumarila’s view of jati is thus similar to that held by Samkhya, namely that when we look at an individual from one point of view (jati as identical with the individual), it is the individual that lays its stress upon our consciousness and the notion of jati becomes latent, but when we look at it from another point of view (the individual as identical with jati) it is the jati which presents itself to consciousness, and the aspect as individual becomes latent. The apprehension as jati or as individual is thus only a matter of different points of view or angles of vision from which we look at a thing. Quite in harmony with the conception of jati, Kumarila holds that the relation of inherence is not anything which is distinct from the things themselves in which it is supposed to exist, but only a particular aspect or phase of the things themselves (Shlokavarttika, Pratyakshasutra, 149, 150, abhedat samavayo’stu svarupam dharmadharminoh), Kumarila agrees with Prabhakara that jati is perceived by the senses (tatraikabuddhinirgrahya jatirindriyagocara).
It is not out of place to mention that on the evidence of Prabhakara we find that the category of vishesha admitted by the Kanada school is not accepted as a separate category by the Mimamsa on the ground that the differentiation of eternal things from one another, for which the category of vishesha is admitted, may very well be effected on the basis of the ordinary qualities of these things. The quality of prithaktva or specific differences in atoms, as inferred by the difference of things they constitute, can very well serve the purposes of vishesha.
1. According to Samkhya-Yoga a thing is regarded as the unity of the universal and the particular (samanyavishesasamudayo dravyam, Vyasabhasya, III. 44), for there is no other separate entity which is different from them both in which they would inhere as Nyaya holds. Conglomerations can be of two kinds, namely those in which the parts exist at a distance from one another (e.g. a forest), and those in which they exist close together (mrantara hi tadavayavah), and it is this latter combination (ayutasiddhavayava) which is called a dravya, but here also there is no separate whole distinct from the parts; it is the parts connected in a particular way and having no perceptible space between them that is called a thing or a whole. The Buddhists as Panditashoka has shown did not believe in any whole (avayavi), it is the atoms which in connection with one another appeared as a whole occupying space (paramanava eva hi pararupadeshapariharenotpannah parasparasahita avabhasamana desavitanavanto bhavanti). The whole is thus a mere appearance and not a reality (see Avayavinirakarana, Six Buddhist Nyaya Tracts). Nyaya however held that the atoms were partless (niravayava) and hence it would be wrong to say that when we see an object we see the atoms. The existence of a whole as different from the parts which belong to it is directly experienced and there is no valid reason against it:
“adustakaranodbhutamanavirbhutabadhakam
asandigdanca vijnanam katham mithyeti kathyate.”
Nyayamanjari, pp. 550 ff.
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