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Recognition may be understood in two senses. In a wide sense, recognition means understanding the nature or character of a thing. In this sense, to recognise a thing is to know it as such-and-such, as when I know that the animal before me is a cow. It is generally admitted that recognition in this sense is an ordinary mode of perception, which is called savikalpaka and which relates a thing and its qualities by way of predication. In a narrow sense, however, recognition means knowing a thing as that which was known before. To recognise thus means to cognise once again that which we are aware of having cognised before. Pratyabhijna is recognition in this sense. consists in knowing not only that a thing is such-and-such but that it is the same thing that we saw before. According to the Naiyayikas, pratyabhijna is the conscious reference of past and a present cognition to the same object. I see a jar, recognise it as something that was perceived before, and say 'this is the same jar that I saw. $2 It With regard to the nature of pratyabhijna or recognition the question is: Is it a simple or a complex cognition? Is it a case of pure perception or menory? According to the Buddhists, recognition is a mechanical compound of perception and memory. It cannot be called perception, because it relates to a past object with which there cannot be any sensecontact. It cannot be called pure memory which refers only to the past, while recognition refers to a present object as the 1 Jayanta Bhatta, however, maintains that liability to error is common to both nirvikalpaka and savikalpaka perceptions. The illusions of sense. like the perception of two moons, are instanced by him as cases of nirvikalpaka perception which are erroneous. (Vide Nyayamanjari, p. 97.) 陋 Purvaparayorvijnanayorekavisaye pratisandhijnanam pratyabhijnanam, etc., Nyaya-Bhasya, 3. 1. 7., 3. 2. 2.

'this.' Nor can we say that recognition is a synthesis or unitary product of perception and memory. Perception and memory arise respectively out of sensation and imagination, and are incapable of fusing into a single effect. Admitting that recognition is a unitary product, what is the nature of its object? If the object be past, then recognition is not different from memory. If it be in the future recognition becomes a form of imagination (samkalpa). The object cannot be a merely present fact, since in recognition the object is identified with something of our past experience. To say that the object of recognition exists in the past, present and future is a contradiction in terms. Hence the Buddhists conclude that pratyabhijna is a dual cognition including both perception and memory which refer respectively to the two aspects of an object as 'this' and 'that,' or as present and past.' The Jainas take pratyabhijna to mean recognition in the sense of both understanding the nature of an object and knowing that it was perceived before. To recognise a thing is to know that it has this or that property, or that it is the same as what was seen before. It is not true to say that pratyabhijna is a dual cognition consisting of perception and memory. Although conditioned by perception and memory, it is a new kind of knowledge which cannot be resolved into them. The testimony of introspection clearly tells us that pratyabhijna is a unitary cognition and a distinct type of knowledge. What the Naiyakas call upamana or comparison is, according to the Jainas, a form of pratyabhijna as understood by them.2 According to the Naiyayikas, pratyabhijna consists in knowing that a thing now perceived is the same as what was perceived before." That pratyabhijna or recognition, in the second sense, is a single psychosis appears clearly from the fact that it refers to one and the same object. The cognitions 1 Nyayamanjari, pp. 448-49- 2 Vide Prameyakamalamartanda, pp. 97-100. 3 So'yamm Devadatta ityatitavartamanakalavisistavisayakam jnanam pratyabhijna, Mitabhasini, p. 25.

of a jar and a cloth are two different psychoses, because they are evidently related to two different objectives. Recognition refers to only one thing and is therefore a simple and unitary cognition. The unique cause (karana) of the phenomenon of recognition is constituted by the senses and the effects of past experience. Recognition is brought about by sense-impressions as modified by the effects of previous experience of an object.' It gives us the knowledge of an object as existing in the present and as qualified by its relation to the past." A thing's relation to past time or a past experience is a character which qualifies its present existence. To know this is just to know that we have perceived it before, i.c. to recognise it. Hence recognition is a special mode of savikalpaka perception. In all but the nirvikalpaka mode of perception there is the influence of past experience on our present knowledge. All savikalpaka or determinate perceptions of objects consist of certain given or presentative elements and certain representative factors like ideas and images of similar objects experienced in the past. In an ordinary savikalpaka perception the representative factors do not remain distinct but are assimilated with the presentative elements to make up one percept. In pratyabhijna or recognition, the representative factor has the form of a definite recollection of some past experience of an object and modifies the present perception of it. Still it is perception, since it is brought about by sense-object contact. Hence the Naiyayika concludes that recognition is a kind of qualified perception, in which the present object is qualified by a distinct recollection of its past experience. The Mimamsakas and the Advaita Vedantins also hold that recognition is a kind of perception. The Mimamsakas, however, do not distinguish it from an ordinary savikalpaka perception. According to them, recognition is that kind of perception in which the object is 1 Samskarasahitamindriyamasyah pratiteh karanam etc., Nyayamanjari, p. 459. 2 Atitakalavisisto vartamanakalavacchinnascartha etasyamavabhasate, ibid. ³ Purvabhijnanavisistagrahyamanamisyatam pratyabhijnanam, Nyayamanjari, p. 461.

determined by the name by which it is called, e.g. 'this is Devadatta." For the Advaitin, pratyabhijna is a perception of the nirvikalpaka kind, since there is in it no predication of anything about the perceived object, but an assertion of its identity amidst changing conditions." 1 Sastradipika, p. 42. 2 Vedanta-paribhasa, Ch. I.