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A substance is defined as the constitutive cause of things or as the substratum of qualities.' There are nine kinds of substances. These are: earth, water, light, air, akasa, time space, soul and mind." Of these, the first four stand for both the atoms of earth, water, light and air, and the compounds formed by these atoms. The atoms of earth, etc., cannot be perceived. A compound of two atoms, called dvyanuka or the dyad, is also imperceptible, because, like an atom, it has no dimension and manifest quality (mahattva and udbhutatva). Mind (manas) as another atomic substance is not an object of ordinary sense-perception. So also akasa, time and space are, according to the Nyaya-Vaisesikas, imperceptible substances.³ Akasa is an all-pervading medium which is inferred from the phenomena of sound. Space and time are conceived as two receptacles of unlimited dimension holding all things and events within them. These two are the most fundamental conditions for the existence of finite objects and are therefore called the origin of all that is originated (janyanam janakah). Each of these is said to be one, eternal and infinite. As infinite wholes these cannot be perceived, since the conditions of perception, viz. limited dimension and manifest quality, are absent in them. It follows from the above that the perceptible substances are carth, water, light, air and the soul. Of these, the soul is the object of internal perception which we shall consider afterwards. With regard to air as a substance, there is some diffSamavayikaranam dravyam, gunasrayo va, Tarkabhasa, 2 Bhasapariccheda, 3. 3 Tarkabhasa and Tarkamrta, Ch. I. 4 Bhasapariccheda and Siddhanta-muktavali, 44-46. p. 20.

erence of opinion among the Naiyayikas. According to the older Naiyayikas, there are two conditions of the external perception of a substance, namely, that it must have a limited dimension and manifest colour (mahattve sati udbhutarupavattvam). On this view, air becomes imperceptible, since it has no manifest colour in it. Its existence is therefore to be known by inference from the quality of touch which subsists in the air. According to the modern Naiyayikas, however, colour is not a condition of all external perception of substances. It is only in the visual perception of substance that manifest colour is an essential condition. The sense of touch also perceives substances in which the quality of touch is manifest (udbhutasparsa). Hence we may have a perception of air as a substance possessing the quality of manifest touch." Admitting that we have a perception of the substances of earth, water, light and air, it should be noted that what we perceive is neither an atom (paramanu) of earth, etc., nor a compound of any two atoms only (dvyanuka). To be perceived, a substance must have a limited dimension. It must be neither infinite like space, etc., nor infinitesimal like an atom of the compound of two atoms. Hence the perceptible substances are finite things from the triad (trasarenu) upwards. A triad (tryanuka) is a compound of three dyads or three compounds of two atoms each. It is the minimum perceptible substance in Indian philosophy. As a matter of fact, therefore, the substances that are perceived by the external senses are complex finite things like the jar, table, tree, etc. In the external perception of substances or finite things the senses come in direct contact with the things. This senseobject contact is called samyoga or conjunction. Of the five external senses, it is the sense of sight and touch that can give us a perception of things. The eye perceives things that have manifest colour, i.e. are visible. The sense of touch perceives things that possess manifest touch or are tangible. In both 1 Tarkamrta, Ch. I. 2 Siddhanta-muktavali, 56.

cases the perceived thing is conjoined to the sense. They are not always or inseparably related but are two substances that come in actual contact with each other at the moment of perception (ayutasiddhyabhavat). The other senses of taste, smell and hearing cannot give us perceptions of things. These can perceive the qualities of taste, etc., but not the substances or things, in which the qualities inhere. Hence we have only visual and tactual perceptions of physical things. To perceive a thing is to perceive it as having a limited dimension in space. The organs of sight and touch, being extended, can perceive things as having a limited extension. The other senses cannot perceive extension and are therefore incapable of perceiving things as extended in space.³ The things that are perceived by the external senses possess a limited dimension (mahattva). This means that they are made up of parts (avayava). The magnitude of a thing depends on the aggregation of a number of parts composing it. Hence it seems that to perceive a thing we must perceive all its component parts at one and the same time. But a simultaneous perception of all the parts of a thing is not possible. In the visual perception of a tree, for example, the the eye comes in contact with only a part of its front side. There is no contact of the eye with the other sides of the tree or other parts that fall outside the visual field. How then can we have a perception of the tree when only a part of it is actually perceived? This question has troubled psychologists for a long time. The answer given by the associationists is generally accepted by other schools of psychology, such as structuralism, functionalism and self-psychology. According to the associationist psychology of Hume, Mill and others, a thing is an aggregate 1 Gandhasrayagrahane tu ghranasyasamarthyam, etc., Siddhanta-muktavali, 53; ghranarasanasrotrani dravyagrahakani, caksustvammanamsi dravyagrahakani, Tarkakaumudi, P. 9. H. H. Price also thinks that our beliefs concerning material things are based upon visual and tactual experiences, and that other modes of senseexperience, e.g. hearing and smelling cannot by themselves give us any knowledge of the material world. See his Perception, p. 2.

of its parts. We perceive the different parts one after the other and it may be, on different occasions. It is because the different parts are always found to go together that their corresponding ideas become associated in our minds. Hence the perception of one part recalls the ideas of the other parts, and all of them associated together give us the perception of the tree. According to other psychologists, the perception of the tree is no doubt due to the combination of the presented part with ideas or representations of the other parts. But this combination is effected, not by the association of ideas, but by the synthetic activity of the mind or the self. Among Indian thinkers the Buddhists adopt the associationist explanation of the perception of things as wholes made up of parts. Here the Naiyayikas point out that the associationist explanation fails to account for the perception of a thing. According to it, the perception of a thing consists in having ideas or images of other parts when one part of it is actually perceived. But these other parts are as far from being the thing as the perceived part itself. Further, to think of the other parts as connected with the perceived part is not to perceive them, but to infer the unperceived from the perceived. Hence what we call the perception of a thing is really an inference or remembrance of it. It cannot be said that to perceive a thing the mind is to synthesise the presentation of a part with the representation of other parts. In that case we have a mental construction and no perception of the thing. So the Naiyayikas maintain that we have a direct perception of the thing as a whole along with the perception of any part of it. According to them, a thing is not a mere aggregate of parts (avayavasamuha), but a whole which is distinct from any or all of the parts constituting it (dravyantara). It subsists in the parts not by fractions, but wholly and indivisibly. To perceive any part of a thing as part is also to perceive the whole to which it belongs. When we perceive a book we apprehend it directly as a whole of parts. We have not to construct it from successive perceptions of different parts or from perception of some

and ideal representation of others. If we have not a direct perception of the thing as a whole, we cannot perceive it at all. If we are to construct the thing from sense-impressions of its parts, perception would become inferential knowledge.' Some modern psychologists confirm the Nyaya view of the direct perception of a thing as a whole. H. H. Price 2 rejects the associationist and the rationalist explanation on this point and holds that in perception 'what we accept is not simply a surface (though this is the most that can be present to our senses) but a complete material thing as a whole. When we sense the sense-datum the house just presents itself to us as a whole, without any reasoning or passage of the mind.' Similarly, the Gestalt psychologists" show that the perception of a thing, say an orange, is not a colour experience somehow combined with the experiences of a certain shape, taste, touch and smell. On the other hand, it is a whole of experience which gives us knowledge of the thing as a whole, i.e. as a round fruit, soft to touch and with sweet acid taste. We try to account for this whole of experience by saying that it is a compound of certain simpler ideas like those of colour, taste, smell, etc. But here. we fail to notice that the experience-whole is what we have to start with and the simpler ideas are discovered by subsequent analysis. Hence we are to say that there is first the perception of a thing as a whole and that its parts are next perceived by focussing attention on this or that aspect of it. But while the Naiyayikas are right in holding that we have the direct perception of a thing as a whole, they seem to limit arbitrarily the range of such perception to the tactual and the visual field. They deny the capacity of perceiving things to the senses of taste, smell and hearing. But it is dogmatic to say that tasting or smelling or hearing a thing is not perceiving it. It is true that taste, smell and sound are the qualities of substances or things. But so also are colour and touch. Hence, 1 Nyaya-Bhasya, 2. 1. 28-34. 2 Perception, pp. 153-54. 3 Psychologies of 1925; Kohler, Gestalt Psychology,

if the senses of sight and touch can perceive things when they sense their colour and touch, there is no reason why the other senses should fail to perceive things when they perceive their other qualities. This is all the more necessary for the Naiyayikas who hold that to perceive a quality the sense must first come in contact with the substance, of which it is the quality. For the perception of a quality, the sense must be related, through the substance, with the quality (samyukla-samavaya). But if there is contact of sense with the substance there must be a perception of it. Even if it be said that perception is not determined by sense-object contact but by the character of immediacy, we have to admit that the senses of taste, smell and hearing give us a perception of things. An appeal to direct experience shows that the gustatory, olfactory and auditory cognitions of things are as immediate as their visual and tactual perceptions.