Below is my translation of a portion of the Nyāyamañjarī’s Perception chapter. I want to say as little as possible about the details of what follows (to avoid spoilers!), but by way of the briefest introduction:
Jayanta Bhaṭṭa was a scholar, playwright, and statesman in the court of the 9th c CE Kaśmīri monarch, Śaṅkaravarman. Although little is known about the details of Jayanta’s life—a typical state of affairs for a premodern Indian intellectual—we can glean some bits of his personality, politics, and religious affiliations from his writings.
His traditionally ascribed bibliography includes a lost commentary on Pāṇini’s Sanskrit grammar; two works of philosophy, the Nyāyakalikā and the Nyāyamañjarī; and a satirical stage play, the Āgamaḍambaram, about the relationship between religion and politics in Śankaravarman’s Kaśmīr. The Nyāya Mañjarī is the largest and most detailed of the extant works: Jayanta is the inheritor of nearly a thousand years of philosophy, starting with Akṣapāda Gautama; extending through the epistemological revolution of Diṅnāga; the classical triad of Uddyotakara, Kumārila Bhaṭṭa, and Dharmakīrti; and coming up to his near contemporaries in Kaśmīr, including the Buddhist scholar, Dharmottara, and the influential Kaśmīri aesthetician, Anandavardhana. Writing from this vantage point, Jayanta presents a sweeping view of the philosophical landscape of his time, balancing close attention to detail with an eye to the deep interconnectedness of a vast and seemingly disparate space of ideas and debates. What follows is my attempt at translating a small bit of this huge work.
The Nyāyamañjarī is organized into numbered volumes, called Āhnikāḥ or “Days”, each of which have named chapters and subsections (though different editions use slightly different names). The following excerpt starts with the section titled “Criticizing the definition of perception presented by Jaimini” and continues up to the section titled “Nonetheless, the object of perception must be temporally situated”. These sections can be found in Day 2, in the Chapter titled “The Views Others in the Theory of Perception”. The Sanskrit text I use is the 1969 Oriental Research Institute Series Edition, published by the University of Mysore (Editor Vidvān KS Varadacharya).
This is a sweet little philosophical set-piece on moral epistemology pretending to be an inane, hairsplitting discussion on some technicalities in a rival tradition’s definition of perception. It’s an iconic representation of Śāstric philosophy: the sardonic, self-aware tone; the hint of absurdist humor; the blink-and-you’ll miss it approach to philosophical insights that says: “yes I know this looks pointless, but pay attention and you’ll see why the details matter”.
In typical śātric style, Jayanta’s text is presented in the form of a suppressed dialog, where distinct speakers are implied but never actually mentioned as such. But, Jayanta’s text is very inter-textual (even more than the typical) and it’s fairly easy to identify individual voices, even belonging to specific historical figures, on the basis of the views presented, the quotations Jayanta includes, and the overall style of philosophizing. In my translation, I choose to identify these voices, where I can, with named historical figures. It’s a somewhat strong interpretive choice, so your mileage may vary. Regardless. The dialog is fun. It’s classic Jayanta. And, Jayanta is a classic author in the Old Nyāya [prācīnanyāya] style. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Awareness of an object arising with the present and proper operation of a person’s sense faculties; this is perception. It cannot ground normative judgments because of its dependence on something present.
(Mīmāmsā Sūtram [MS] 1.1.4)
The followers of Jaimini do not consider this aphorism to be primarily for the sake of a definition; since, then, it would fail to connect with the preceding assertion:
Something identified by a rule as “good” is called a norm [dharmaḥ].
(MS 1.1.2)
Rather, a definition is presented just to show that perception, by virtue of this definition, cannot ground normative judgments. To quote:
This being the case, reviewing the definition of perception would make sense.
(Ślōkavārttikam [SV] Sūtra [S]4. Kārika [K]39)
(Jayanta) Regardless, the construction of this aphorism is unsatisfactory as the statement of a definition because it fails to address the problem of over-extension. Specifically, if the intent of the aphorism is to say that perception is a state of awareness that arises concurrently with the operation of the sense faculties; then, ambiguous and erroneous states, insofar as they too can arise from the operation of the senses, would also receive the designation of perception. So, it overextends.
(Mīmāṁsaka) Then we’ll interpret “present…operation” as “operating on something present”.
(Jayanta) Even then, only hallucinations, being causally disconnected from and, therefore, independent of their objects, would be excluded; not ambiguous and erroneous states which are still object-dependent.
(Mīmāṁsaka) Then we won’t discard the interpretation of “present” as “concurrent”. Instead, we’ll interpret the word “proper” as “successful”, thereby excluding ambiguity and error. To quote:
In the phrase “proper operation”, the word “proper” means “successful” and excludes faulty operation of the sense faculties. Seeing, e.g., mother-of-pearl and thinking ‘silver’ would be ruled out because it counts as failure.
(SV S4.K38-K39)
(Jayanta) Even so, since we don’t have sensory access to ‘success’ as a property instantiated in the operation, it’s not the sort of thing that can be directly perceived. So, you have to explain how success of an operation is to be understood in terms of the properties of its effect. The effect, in this case, is a judgment. So, without making this explicit, it’s not possible to understand what constitutes a successful operation. And we find not one word, one syllable, even so much as a half-mora about this anywhere in the aphorism.
Additionally, whereas reading the word “present” as “operating on something present” serves to exclude object-independent judgments, i.e. hallucinations; reading it as “concurrent” makes it inferrable from context and, therefore, simply redundant.
(Mīmāṁsaka) What if we say that we know from common sense what the properties of the resulting judgment are in virtue of which we are able to determine operational success?
(Jayanta) Well, if common sense already tells us what perception is; then, why even worry about whether the aphorism works as a definition.
(Jayanta) As for what “our venerable commentator” says, trying to fix the definition by transposing the words ‘present’ and ‘this’:
(Upavarṣa) That which deviates from its object cannot be perceived. What is perception, then?
Awareness of an object arising with the proper operation of the sense faculties on this, when present, is perception.
When the object which forms the content of a judgment is the same object as what the sense faculties operate on, resulting in awareness, this is perception. When the judgment is of one object and the sense operates on a different object, this is not perception.
(Jayanta) What pointless dancing around! Bringing in the notion of a mismatch between target and content still doesn’t exclude ambiguous judgments. After all, the object of judgment is still the same as that which the senses operate on.
(Upavarṣa) Surely, an ambiguous judgment is of two objects, whereas the senses do not operate on both.
(Jayanta) Please. An ambiguous experience doesn’t present a pair of objects, like a dhava and a khadira tree. Rather, we have ambiguity when our awareness of an object is unable to disambiguate between possible identities; e.g. is it a post or a person? And, in fact, the object the senses operate on is among those two. In other words, since an ambiguous judgment involves awareness of an object under both identities, it would still be the case that the object the senses operate on is the same as that which the resulting judgment is of. So, the problem of over-extension remains.
Now, some say:
(Kumārila) Why are you obsessing over this? We don’t take the aphorism to be a definition at all, since this would be incompatible with interpreting it as just a restatement our shared understanding. To explain: the aphorism argues for perception’s inability to ground normative judgments by reviewing our common-sense understanding of how perception works.
Perception is not evidential with respect to normativity because it depends on a present object; i.e. it grasps an object that is present. And, normativity is not something present. As the semantic content of sentences like “one ought to perform ritual”, “one ought to give”, “one ought to sacrifice”, etc., it is not the sort of thing to which temporal divisions like past, present, and future can be applied.
And if you ask why the text even mentions: “awareness of an object arising with the present and proper operation of the sense faculties; this is perception”?
The answer is: it’s included to justify our claim that perception depends on something present.
If someone says we haven’t established perception’s dependence on a present object, we can reply: perception depends on a present object because it results from sensory operation on an object that is present. And we analyze perception in order to demonstrate that the reason obtains. That is, if someone says we haven’t proven that the senses must operate on a present object, we can reply: perception results from the senses operating on something present because of its nature as perception. To quote:
The reason, here, is ‘its nature as perception’. The rest is for explaining what the reason amounts to.
(SV S4.K21)
So, we must independently describe the nature of perception in order to exclude its grasping of the normative. Perception can’t grasp normative properties because of its nature as perception. This is how it is with our perception; and, so it is with others, as well. Insofar as this is the true intention of the aphorism, there is no scope for such issues as over-extension, etc.
(Jayanta) Well, this wouldn’t impress a real philosopher: Whose perception are you trying to prove as not capable of grounding normative judgments, anyway? The perception of people like us? Or the perception of sages?
If you’re talking about the perception of people like us; well, since no one argues with that—why are you wasting your breath? But, if you’re talking about the perception of sages; since you don’t even agree that there is such a thing as “the perception of sages”, how can you prove that it can’t ground normative judgment?
Since (according to you) the property possessor does not exist, your arguments from “dependence on a present object” or “the nature of perception”, etc., all face the problem of an empty subject term.
And, if you say that you’re just leveraging your opponent’s own argument: What sort of argument is this, exactly? Is it evidence based? Or the opposite? In the first case: since evidence doesn’t take sides, it would prove your opponent’s point along with your own. And, if it isn’t evidence based; then, it’s not an argument for anything at all.
The opponent argues that sage perception is real. By reusing their arguments, you defeat yourself in the very statement of your thesis.
The opponent holds that there exists a type of perception called sage perception that grasps normative properties. By reusing this position, you end up saying that that which grasps normative properties can’t grasp normative properties.
An argument can’t be constructed in dependence on the opponent’s conclusions. Even as you lay it out, it loses its support.
And, if the opponent’s argument is insufficient to prove their position; then, it would also be insufficient to establish the existence of the property possessor.
(Kumārila) Except, here’s the thing: this is an argument by deduction. Deduction involves showing that the premises someone holds entails certain conclusions, which they may find undesirable. The opponent accepts the premises that perception depends on something present and that it is the result of sensory operation on a present object. If we use these premises to show that, for them, perception can’t ground normative judgments; what’s the problem?
(Jayanta) No, that’s not how it works,
Deduction can’t prove that anything is actually true. It’s like painting without a canvas.
Or, to put it another way: you can’t argue about whether a flower that grows in the sky would smell sweet or not.
Or, else, fine. So, what. Let’s say it is a deductive argument. It still depends on entailments between the relevant facts. And, there’s no way for people like us to have access to these entailment relations. Who, after all, can really say it’s true for everyone that perception can’t grasp the normative. You don’t know that my perception can’t grasp normative properties. I don’t know that your perception can’t grasp normative properties. And neither of us knows this about some third person.
And, if you did know this about everyone. Well, then, you’d be a sage yourself! So, why hate on other sages?
(Kumārila)
Look, mister. You need to understand how philosophy works. When we’re talking about objects standing outside the scope of direct perception, you can’t just respond with snide comments. Your jibes do nothing in the face of evidence. And where there’s no evidence; there’s no point in saying anything, anyway.
So, give up your obsession with mocking me and please look for some proof to back up your extraordinary claims. And, if you are able to give proof when asked for it; well, then, we’ll have no choice but to say, “OṀ”.
But, if not—it means you don’t have any.
(Jayanta) Oh boy. We’ve really been schooled in the philosophers’ creed. Look, we’re not mocking you—we’re just asking you some questions.
(Kumārila) Then, answer this: what evidence do you have for the existence of this “sage perception” that is supposed to have access to normative properties?
(Jayanta) Here’s what we say: the evidence lies in the fact that some perceptual faculties are superior to others.
After all, people like us, with our visual faculties, can only see clusters of objects sitting close by. But, cats can see things just fine even if they’re dropped in some place covered in thick, dark murk. And, in the Rāmāyaṇa, we learn about the vulture Saṁpāti who saw Rāmā’s wife imprisoned a hundred miles away. This is what we mean by superiority in perceptual faculties. They can come in gradations of quality, similar to how colors come in shades, with some being superior and others inferior. And, when someone reaches the highest level of excellence, we call them a sage. In the case of the perceptual faculties, reaching the highest level means being able to see things that are especially subtle, or hidden, or distant, or in the past or future, etc.
(Kumārila) Surely, this notion of superiority doesn’t extend to perceiving objects that are not within the innate scope of a given sense faculty. And normative properties are not visual objects at all. To quote:
Even in the case of perceptual superiority, it does not transcend the sense faculty’s innate scope. It means that you might see things that are smaller or further away; not that you can hear colors.
(SV S2.K114)
And also
Whatever superiority we see in people’s perceptual faculties—due to their intelligence, skill, or power—only involves minor improvements here and there; not sensing insensible things.
(Jayanta) This response doesn’t work: even if normativity falls outside the scope of the visual faculty of people like us, that doesn’t mean it falls outside the scope of a sage’s faculties. After all, objects that are hundreds of miles away or covered in darkness do not fall within the scope of our visual sense, but they do fall within the scope of Saṁpāti’s or the cat’s vision.
(Kumārila) Surely, if a sage’s visual sense can operate on non-visual objects, it should even be able to grasp things like smells and flavors? To quote:
If you had a single kind of evidential process ground every judgment; you might as well have eyes that see flavors and the like.
(SV S2.K112)
(Jayanta) No you wouldn’t. For one thing, we’re saying all the sensory faculties of a sage could be superior, like their eyes; not that everything becomes a visual object for them. But, if the argument is that the normative should be denied visual access for the same reason as flavor: the difference is that, unlike with flavors, etc., nothing specifically precludes normative properties from being visual objects.
In other words, how exactly did you conclude that the normative does not fall under the scope of sage perception? That some object falls outside the scope of a sense faculty is determined by showing that it can fail to be cognized even when the sense faculty is functioning. Consider how we know that sound is not within the scope of the visual sense because we observe that sound can fail to be cognized even when our eyes are functioning. But, you could not know this about normative properties and sage perception—that the former could fail to be cognized when the latter is functioning—since neither one is observable by you. So, you have no grounds for saying that the one is outside the scope of the other.
(Kumārila) The normative has the form of an “ought” and is utterly unconnected to the past, present, or future. Surely it’s outrageous to say it could ever be a visual object?
(Jayanta) True, it would be outrageous for your eyes, or mine. But, it’s not such a hard road to take when it comes to sages, who see all things.
(Jayanta) And, also: all this talk about how “the normative is not temporally situated” and “our only resort to learn about it is scriptural statements like ‘you ought to perform ritual’, etc.” and “how could we possibly investigate it through any other evidential process”—this is all just a bunch of technicalities. Why should we even care whether it is or isn’t situated in time?
Consider how we know that actions like movement have the capacity to, e.g., change one’s location. If we say sages can tell that actions like performing the agnihotram ritual have the capacity to deliver positive karmic results, like heaven; what’s so outrageous about this?
Or, if your real problem is with flesh-and-blood sense organs and you just can’t accept that they could be superior in this way. Then, fine. You can stop attacking me on this point.
There is still the case of judgment derived from the mental faculty, such as we see arising from meditative practice, which could apprehend the normative in moments of intense focus, like a lover thinking of their beloved.
And the mind can take anything as its object. There is nothing at all that lies outside its scope. Through practice, even insensible objects can appear as clear and manifest intuitions. As Dharmakīrti once said:
Tormented by insane nightmares, filled with sadness and longing, people see things that never existed as if standing before their eyes.
(PV 3.282)
(Kumārila) Come on! These are all examples of erroneous mental states. You can’t use them as analogies for sage perception.
(Jayanta) No, the analogy being drawn here is just that both are experienced in a clear and manifest way. Even in classic arguments where we draw an analogy between, e.g., language and pottery as instances of artifactual objects; it isn’t the case that the two are the same in every respect. In the former case, our examples of meditative states arising from sadness and longing fail to be evidential specifically because they are struck down by defeaters. But, since this is not the case with perceiving normativity, the basis for denying their evidentiality also does not obtain. Nonetheless, the two are equivalent with respect to their both being clear and manifest experiences.
(Kumārila) Surely, even with practice, you don’t see endless or unprecedented improvement. Consider jumping practice: when someone spends every day single mindedly practicing jumping, they would, still, only be able to jump a few extra feet above the ground; not leap over mountains or oceans.
(Jayanta) To this, we say:
Jumping does not attain such excellence because the body is made up of material constituents like phlegm, etc. But, what’s stopping the mind?
If, in the preceding days, someone practices jumping and the like; in the following days, they don’t experience a fundamental change in their body. Rather, through the reduction of fat and phlegm, the body becomes leaner and they can jump around as they please. In the case of the mind, though, the cause of cognitive excellence is in the gradual accumulation of the sorts of psychological dispositions that are conducive to the arising of insight.
Consider: when a student starts doing concentration exercises and reading practice, certain dispositions become impressed upon their psyche and manifest as skill in recitation and recall. Or else: when gold is fired in a furnace; it ever so gradually becomes purified and reaches a state of unparalleled refinement. In the same way, through meditative practice, the sage’s mental faculty becomes fit to directly access all objects of insight.
For ordinary people like us, the mind is occluded by psychological impediments like partiality and prejudice; and, so, fails to reach this state of cognitive excellence. But, as all these psychological impediments are eroded through the daily practice of meditation, and the mind of the sage is made pure; what, then, could they fail to see? When partiality and prejudice are finally destroyed, the sage is able to fully open their minds and reflect on the highest good. Then, with the elimination of all such cognitive faults, their mind fixed in meditation, the sage is able to clearly grasp all things.
(Jayanta) What’s more, even people like us can sometimes form judgments about future events such as, “my brother is coming home tomorrow,” on the basis of an evidential process called ‘intuition’.
And, in so far as it is not:
it must be accepted as a type of evidential process.
If some defeat condition does obtain; then, sure, it wouldn’t count as evidential. But, if the brother does show up on the following day; what would you say to that?
If you say, “it’s just a coincidence.” Well, insofar as something is grasped via an evidential process, you can’t dismiss it as coincidence.
(Kumārila) Oh, come on. That judgment isn’t causally connected to its object. Its cause, the brother, wouldn’t even exist yet.
(Jayanta) It’s like this. You’d be right if the brother is cognized as being such that he is. But, what is actually cognized is his being such that he will be. And he is, even then, such that he will be. So, why should the judgment not be connected to its object?
(Kumārila) No, no; it doesn’t work to say he’s cognized as being “such that he will be”. Something’s being such that it will be is a kind of temporaly-bounded prior absence. And what kind of causal link can exist between an absence and a presence, such as this brother? After all, an object cannot coexist with its absence.
(Jayanta) That’s not right. The prior absence, here, is of the brother’s relation to that location, not of the brother as such. He does, after all, still exist at the time of his being cognized. It’s like this: somehow or other, e.g. because you are acquainted with his pattern of gettting hungry, he suddenly comes to mind and you get an intuition that he’s going to come visit tomorrow. So, he is the cause of the intuition. And, since it’s not the case that the intuition is causally unconnected to its object, it can be evidential with regards to him. Moreover, as a form of evidence, it’s just perception—not some other kind of evidential process—because it doesn’t explicitly involve language, reasons, or similarity relations.
(Kumārila) It could hardly be considered perception if it doesn’t involve any sense faculties.
(Jayanta) Please. The mind is the sense faculty, here.
(Kumārila) The mental faculty only grasps an external object under the modes of presentation by which it was disclosed in previous sensory encounters. Otherwise, we would not have such things as blindness, etc.
(Jayanta) We answer: when we form a truthful judgment about some object in the absence of additional supporting factors such as language, this is called mental perception. Examples include judgments of the form “ketakī flowers are fragrant,” and, “sugar is sweet.” Insofar as such judgements obey the same conditions as perception, there is no basis for complaining that intuition is a form of cognition without determinate conditions.
(Jayanta) Nor is intuition the same as what is called “sage knowing”; since there is no reason to believe that such a form of judgment, standing outside the purview of perception, even exists. For, they say: “the form of knowledge which sages have is itself derived from scripture” [citation unknown]. Here, reference to “scripture” is merely for the sake of illustration. The point is just that this would not be an independent instrument.
(Jayanta) Intuition is also not the same thing as “seer’s sight”, since we hold that even ordinary people like us have intuitions.
In conclusion, intuition is not a distinct instrument of knowledge. It’s just a type of perception.
(Kumārila) Come now, it still can’t be a form of perception. Since, as we’ve discussed, the object of perception must be present. To quote:
The senses grasp only things which are present and connected to them.
(SV K4.V84)
Or, conversely, if the normative were perceived it would have to be as a present object.
(Jayanta) Please. You yourself admitted at one point that it’s possible to perceive objects not situated in the present time:
When we see silver, we see it possessing the property ‘durability’
[citation unknown, but appears to be from Kumārila’s corpus]
So, you must accept that perceptions, such as “my brother will come tomorrow”, can be of objects not occurring in the present.
And, this being the case, just as people like us can see that our brother will come, so too can the perceptual faculties of sages operate over the future and the normative. So, we have answered your challenge against sage perception:
Just those sorts of instruments of knowledge and those sorts of objects disclosed by them which we see existing in the world today; these are all there have ever been since the dawn of time.
(SV K2.V113)
[1] Jayantabhaṭṭa, & Varadacharya, K. S. (1969). Nyāyamañjarī of Jayantabhaṭṭa. Oriental Research Institute.