Annambhaṭṭa on the types of perception

nidhāya hṛdi viśvêśaṃ vidhāya guru-vandanam |

bālānāṃ sukha-bodhāya kriyate tarka-saṅgrahaḥ ||

How do we perceive the world around us? What sort of semantic structure does the content of these perceptions possess? The Tarkasaṅgraha or Bālagādādharī of Annambhaṭṭa, a 17th century introduction to the school of logic known as Navya Nyāya, attempts to answer these questions, among many others, at a level suitable to “children”. (Looks like they used to have smart kids back in those days.) Annambhaṭṭa presents six kinds of relations between the senses of perception and objects of perception to account for the various features of our perceptual experiences. This sextet is a tradition that extends over a millennium before him to Udayana. (For what it’s worth, this sextet was criticized by some very prominent Naiyāyikas like Gaṅgeśa and Raghunātha Śiromaṇi.)

If that makes no sense, fear not. Navya Nyāya is regarded as impenetrably technical hair-splitting by most Sanskrit paṇḍits, who are themselves usually regarded by others as engaging in impenetrably technical hair-splitting. As a result, English translations of Navya Nyāya texts flourish in a special circle of Indological hell where even furiously sleeping colorless green ideas fear to tread.

Nevertheless, I shall try to translate this short excerpt from the Tarkasaṅgraha into English, fully aware that I resemble the man who wishes to speak in an assembly without knowledge of grammar, who in turn resembles the man who wishes to restrain a rutting elephant with a rope made from a lotus-stalk (śabda-śāstram anadhītya yaḥ pumān vaktum icchati vacaḥ sabhântare / bandhum icchati vane madôtkaṭaṃ kuñjaraṃ kamala-nāla-tantunā). If nothing else, my translation will show how wordy an English translation of Navya Nyāya will be if it wants to resemble idiomatic English. I make no claims of correctness or accuracy of translation. This is what I understand of Navya Nyāya for now.

[For those who actually want to know what objects of perception are in Navya Nyāya, I recommend Daniel H. H. Ingalls’ classic Materials for the Study of Navya Nyāya Logic, as well as Sibajiban Bhattacharya’s critical review of this book. I should add that I haven’t really read Ingalls as closely as I ought to, but am relying on āpta-vacana in recommending this book.]

pratyakṣa-jñāna-hetur indriyârtha-sannikarṣaḥ ṣaḍ-vidhaḥ (1a) saṃyogaḥ (1b) saṃyukta-samavāyaḥ (1c) saṃyukta-samaveta-samavāyaḥ (2a) samavāyaḥ (2b) samaveta-samavāyaḥ (3) viśeṣaṇa-viśeṣya-bhāvaś cêti ||

1. 
   
1. cakṣuṣā ghaṭa-pratyakṣa-janane, saṃyogaḥ sannikarṣaḥ ||
2. ghaṭa-rūpa-pratyakṣa-janane, saṃyukta-samavāyaḥ sannikarṣaḥ: cakṣuḥ-saṃyukte ghaṭe rūpasya samavāyāt ||
3. rūpatva-sāmānya-pratyakṣe, saṃyukta-samaveta-samavāyaḥ sannikarṣaḥ: cakṣuḥ-saṃyukte ghaṭe rūpaṃ samavetaṃ, tatra rūpatvasya samavāyāt ||
2. 
   
1. śrotreṇa śabda-sākṣāt-kāre, samavāyaḥ sannikarṣaḥ: karṇa-vivara-varty-ākāśasya śrotratvāc, chabdasyâ ’’kāśa-guṇatvād, guṇa-guṇinoś ca samavāyāt ||
2. śabdatva-sākṣāt-kāre, samaveta-samavāyaḥ sannikarṣaḥ: śrotra-samavete śabde śabdatvasya samavāyāt ||
3. abhāva-pratyakṣe, viśeṣaṇa-viśeṣya-bhāvaḥ sannikarṣaḥ: “ghaṭâbhāvavad bhū-talam” ity atra cakṣuḥ-samyukte bhū-tale ghaṭâbhāvasya viśeṣaṇatvāt ||

evaṃ sannikarṣa-ṣaṭka-janyaṃ jñānaṃ tat-karaṇam indriyaṃ tasmād indriyaṃ pratyakṣa-pramāṇam iti siddham ||



Connection between the sense of perception and an object of perception is what gives rise to a knowledge-generating episode. These connections are of six kinds. 

1. [Consider the situation when I see a pot.]
1. When my perception of the pot takes place by means of my sense of vision, the connection between pot and eye is called contact, saṃyoga.
2. When my perception of the pot’s form takes place, the connection with the pot-form inherent in the pot that is in contact with the eye is called inherence in the contacted object, saṃyukta-samavāya, because the quality inheres in the object that is in contact with a sense.
3. When my perception of the universal of formness takes place, the connection is called inherence in the inhered quality which itself inheres in the contacted object, saṃyukta-samaveta-samavāya, because the universal inheres in the quality, which in turn inheres in the contacted object.
2. [Now consider the situation when I hear something.]
1. When a sound is made manifest by the sense of hearing, the connection is called inherence, samavāya. This is because (a) the substance ether (ākāśa) that exists in the cavity of the ear makes up the sense of hearing, and (b) sound is a quality of ether,  and (c) the relationship between the quality and the quality-possessor is inherence.
2. When the universal of soundness becomes manifest, the connection is called inherence in the inhered quality, samaveta-samavāya. This is because of the inherence of the universal of soundness in the sound that inheres in the sense of hearing.
3. [Now consider the situation when I do not see a pot on the floor.] When there is the perception of an absence, the connection is the qualifier-qualificand relation, viśeṣaṇa-viśeṣya-bhāva. This is because, when one cognizes that “there is no pot on the floor”, the absence of the pot on the floor (which is in contact with the eye) is a qualifier of the floor.

It is thus established 

• that an episode of cognition arises from the sextet of connections; 
• that the immediate cause of this cognition are the senses; and 
• that the senses are therefore instruments of perceptual knowledge.

Some of this sounds terribly strange because modern talk about cognitions tends to stay far away from ideas like universals. Navya Nyāya, on the other hand, has an unabashedly realist ontology that holds that substances, qualities, inherence, universals and the like are all real, and form the most parsimonious way of accounting for the objective qualities of our cognitions of the world. And it’s not like they were naïve and sheltered; if anything, they defended, sharpened, and refined their realism in the face of a no-holds-barred, millennium-long assault by Buddhist intellectuals. If nothing else, that should give hope to contemporary rational thinkers who despair at the pernicious effects of postmodern attacks on reason and objectivity.