One thought on “What is “perception”? mānasapratyakṣa vs. manas-pratyakṣa”

1. Okay that’s helpful, thanks Elisa. I think I’m seeing better where you’re coming from now. I think we’re inching forward and some mutual understanding is emerging.

   Let’s focus on the distinction you are making between:
   – The Nyāya view, in which perception includes indriyapratyakṣa and mānasapratyakṣa
   – The Mīmāṃsā view, in which perception includes only indriyapratyakṣa, not mānasapratyakṣa

   I think this makes it easy to understand why I was attributing to you (https://indianphilosophyblog.org/2026/04/17/is-there-a-seeming-contradiction-in-kumarilas-account-of-i-cognition/) the view that Mīmāṃsā / Kumārila denies that mānasapratyakṣa is perception. You hadn’t put it as baldly as this before, but I had identified it as an underlying presupposition necessary to justify your claim that there is a contradiction in Kumārila if he accepts I-cognition as perception. (If he accepts mānasapratyakṣa, then I-cognition can be mānasapratyakṣa so there is no contradiction.) I followed this up by saying that I didn’t think you could “really think that Kumārila denies that mānasa-pratyakṣa is pratyakṣa”: https://indianphilosophyblog.org/2026/04/17/is-there-a-seeming-contradiction-in-kumarilas-account-of-i-cognition/.

   Now this latest response, where you clarify your position by making this contrast
   – Nyāya: perception includes indriyapratyakṣa and mānasapratyakṣa
   – Kumārila: perception includes only indriyapratyakṣa, not mānasapratyakṣa
   certainly makes it look like you’re denying that Kumārila includes mānasapratyakṣa in perception. But it’s clear that in one sense you’re denying it and in another sense you’re not. You’re distinguishing “manas-pratyakṣa” from “mānasapratyakṣa”, and saying that Kumārila accepts the former but denies the latter.

   Here is my more detailed understanding of what you’re doing in this latest response.

   You are
   – making/seeing a firm distinction between indriyapratyakṣa and mānasapratyakṣa
   – placing cognition of pleasure and pain within the category of indriyapratyakṣa, not mānasapratyakṣa
   – reserving the term mānasapratyakṣa for the kind of cognition that accesses the immediately preceding cognition
   – using the term manas-pratyakṣa for perception of pleasure and pain
   – making a firm distinction between manas-pratyakṣa, which is a kind of indriyapratyakṣa, and mānasapratyakṣa, which is not a kind of indriyapratyakṣa

   That raises the following questions for me.

   1. Does this reflect Sanskrit usage?
   2. If it doesn’t, does it matter? Does this new terminology have some advantages?
   3. If we put this together with your earlier claim (that the I cannot be perceived, because indriyapratyakṣa is the only kind of perception for Kumārila), where are we now?

   First question:
   Wouldn’t you say that this goes against Sanskrit usage? Not that that is a problem if there is some benefit to seeing things in this way.

   I’m guessing you would agree that this does not reflect Sanskrit usage, in that:
   – we don’t find in Sanskrit usage a terminological distinction between manas-pratyakṣa and mānasapratyakṣa
   – we do not find perception of pleasure etc. exclusively referred to as indriyapratyakṣa
   – we commonly find perception of pleasure etc. named as mānasapratyakṣa
   – we commonly find perception of the self referred to as mānasapratyakṣa, even though it does not access the immediately preceding cognition
   – the things you are separating out usually get lumped into mānasapratyakṣa, this commonly being the term used to describe (1) perception of pleasure, etc., (2) perception of I, and (3) perception of the immediately preceding cognition.
   – the things you are lumping together as indriyapratyakṣa – perception of an external object and perception of pleasure etc. – are frequently distinguished from each other through the former being referred to as indriyapratyakṣa and the latter as mānasapratyakṣa.

   When indriyapratyakṣa and mānasapratyakṣa are juxtaposed in Sanskrit sources, wouldn’t you agree that A is much more common than B? –
   A. indriyapratyakṣa means perception by means of the 5 external faculties and mānasapratyakṣa means perception by means of the manas
   B. indriyapratyakṣa means perception by means of the 6 faculties and mānasapratyakṣa means preception of a preceding cognition.

   I’ve never actually seen B. Here are a few examples of A:

   1. Nyāyamañjarī I 484,10–13:
   tathā hīśvarasadbhāvo na pratyakṣapramāṇakaḥ /
   na hy asāv akṣavijñāne rūpādir iva bhāsate //
   na ca mānasavijñānasaṃvedyo ‘yaṃ sukhādivat /
   yoginām aprasiddhatvāt na tatpratyakṣagocaraḥ //
   “To explain: The existence of God is not supported by perception, for He does not appear in sense-perception in the way that something like colour does. And He is not known through mental (mānasa-) perception in the way that pleasure etc. are. [And] He is not accessed by yogic perception, because Yogins [with the power of extra-sensory perception] are not commonly accepted.”
   So we here we have a triple division of perception into sense-perception (akṣavijñāna, indriyapratyakṣa), mental (mānasa-) perception and yogic perception – the three types that you list in your post as accepted by Naiyāyikas. Jayanta understands them in the way that strikes me as typical:
   – sense-perception means perception by means of the 5 external senses, the standard example being perception of colour
   – mental perception means perception by means of the manas, the standard example being perception of pleasure
   But your understanding of this triple division between sense-, mental and yogic is different in that you see sense-perception as including perception of pleasure and pain, and mental perception as only including awareness of a previous cognition.

   2. You might say that Jayanta’s is a Naiyāyika perspective, and that Kumārila, unlike him, would see sense-perception as including perception of pleasure and pain, and mental perception as only including awareness of a previous cognition? But it is actually a Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsaka speaking there (as can be seen from the rejection of yogic perception); Jayanta is representing Kumārila’s view as faithfully as he can. And see Śālikanātha’s characterization of the Bhāṭṭa view at Prakaraṇapañcikā, p. 333, 1–3:
   tatra ke cid āhuḥ—mānasaṃ pratyakṣaṃ sukhādiṣv ivātmani pramāṇam iti
   “Mental perception is the means of knowing the self, as it is the means of knowing pleasure and the like.”
   Here too we find that
   – Kumārila is depicted as accepting mānasaṃ pratyakṣaṃ
   – the standard example of this mānasaṃ pratyakṣaṃ is perception of pleasure and the like.

   For you mānasa-cognition is something altogether different from the kind of cognition through which we know pleasure and the like. But here it is exactly that. It is not a name only for the kind of cognition that accesses the previous cognition.

   3. Throughout his discussion of recognition (Nyāyamañjarī II 307–336), Jayanta distinguishes two views – that recognition (pratyabhijñā) is sense-perception (indriyajaṃ jñānam) or that it is mental (mānasa): see pp. 1394,129; 1396,144; 1396,147; 1396,148 in the edition in Watson (2022). See Nilanjan Das (2018) and Watson (forthcoming) for a discussion of these two views.

   That indriya is used throughout this passage to refer exclusively to the 5 external sense-faculties – to contrast them with the manas – is beyond doubt. See for example §2.3.4 and §2.4 (in the edition in Watson 2022). If indriya were being used to refer to the 6 sense-faculties, i.e. to include the manas, the intended contrast between the indriyaja view and the mānasa view would not come across.

   4. When Kamalaśīla is defending, against non-Buddhists, his view that pleasure etc. are brought to awareness by svasaṃvedana, he names the means by which pleasure is perceived for the non-Buddhists as mānasa-cognition, not indriya-cognition; see TSP ad TS 1332–1339:
   sukhādīnāṃ mānasenaiva cetasā vedyatveneṣṭatvāt …
   sukhādīnāṃ mānasenaiva cetasā vedyatvenābhyupagamāt.

   If indriya-cognition meant perception by means of the 6 faculties and mānasa-cognition meant perception of a preceding cognition, then we would expect perception of pleasure to be termed indriya-cognition, but it is not: it is termed mānasa-cognition.

   5. If your definitions of indriyapratyakṣa and mānasapratyakṣa were the way those terms were used, then we would expect I-cognition to be classified by its advocates as indriyapratyakṣa. But it is not. It is classified as mānasapratyakṣa. That should mean, sticking to your usage, that I-cognition perceives an immediately preceding cognitive event. But none of the upholders of I-cognition thought that it was perceiving an immediately preceding cognitive event.

   6. Concerning the use of the term indriya in Nyāya sources:
   The manas is often treated as something over and above the ‘indriyas’, something not included among the referents of the word indriya. For examples of this use of indriya, where it excludes the manas, see:
   – Nyāyasūtra 1.1.12: it lists the indriyas and leaves out the manas.
   – Vātsyāyana ad 1.1.4 defends the fact that the Naiyāyika definition of perception includes the qualifier “is definitive” (vyavasāyātmakam), on the grounds that otherwise doubtful cognitions would count as perception. For the other qualifiers in the definition, such as “arises from contact between indriya and object”, apply to doubtful cognitions. To avoid the definition undesirably including doubtful cognitions, we need it to include the stipulation that perception must be “definitive”, i.e. non-doubtful. Vātsyāyana sees this as inviting the following objection, which he articulates and then answers: But doubtful cognitions do not arise from contact with an indriya, they arise from contact with the manas. (So they would not be included by the definition even if it lacked the qualifer ‘is definitive’.) Clearly this would not be a cogent objection if the word indriya was understood to include the manas among its referents.
   – Further on in the same sūtra, Vātsyāyana articulates the following objection. The stipulation in the definition that perception must ‘arise from contact between indriya and object’ makes the definition too narrow, because it excludes perception of the self and perception of pleasure, given that neither of them are produced by contact with an indriya (ātmādiṣu sukhādiṣu ca pratyakṣalakṣaṇaṃ vaktavyam, anindriyārthasannikarṣajaṃ hi tat). A good definition of perception must apply to perception of pleasure and perception of the self, but the requirement of indriya-object contact excludes these two valid forms of perception. Vātsyāyana’s response is that the faculty that brings about perception of the self and of pleasure is the manas – implying that the manas is a kind of indriya; but again the existence of the objection assumes an understanding of the meaning of indriya as excluding the manas.
   – Vātsyāyana ad 1.1.9 defines the manas in opposition to the indriyas, on the grounds that indriyas are not capable of apprehending all objects, but the manas is: sarvārthopalabdhau nendriyāṇi prabhavantīti sarvaviṣayam antaḥkaraṇaṃ manaḥ.

   These passages do not negate the existence of other passages in which the manas is said to be a kind of indriya, but they do support the idea that when Naiyāyikas claim to accept indriyapratyakṣa and mānasapratyakṣa, they do not – as stated in your post – include perception of pleasure and pain within indriyapratyakṣa; they include it within mānasapratyakṣa.

   ***

   So what we find in these 6 kinds of passages are:
   1. mānasapratyakṣa rather than indriyapratyakṣa being used for perception of pleasure and pain.
   2. mānasapratyakṣa rather than indriyapratyakṣa being used for perception of the self
   3. indriyapratyakṣa being used to refer exclusively to perception by means of the 5 external sense-faculties, in order to contrast with mānasapratyakṣa

   Your restriction of mānasapratyakṣa to only cognitions that “access immediately preceding cognitive events” strikes me as counter to Sanskrit usage. Have you seen it defined in such a narrow way?

   The way I see it, which I think reflects Sanskrit usage more:
   – both Nyāya and Mīmāṃsā accept indriyapratyakṣa (in the sense it is used in the passages above: perception by means of the 5 external senses) and mānasapratyakṣa (in the sense it is used in the passages above: perception by means of the manas)
   – but there is one thing that Nyāya includes in mānasapratyakṣa that Mīmāṃsā rejects: anuvyavasāya.

   In other words, Kumārila and his followers accept mānasapratyakṣa, but assign it a more limited role. If you could provide me with an example of Kumārila saying that mānasapratyakṣa is not valid, then I’ll reconsider.

   ***

   Perhaps you will say (?) that although
   – mānasapratyakṣa is not usually defined as perception of a previous cognition
   – you have not seen passages where Kumārila and his followers deny the validity of mānasapratyakṣa in all its forms
   there are advantages to stating things in this way.

   If so, what do you think the advantages are in comparison to characterizinig things in this way:

   – Kumārila accepts mānasapratyakṣa
   – he denies svasaṃvedana
   – he rejects the Buddhist understanding of mānasapratyakṣa
   – he denies one subtype of mānasapratyakṣa that the Naiyāyikas accepted, namely anuvyavasāya
   – he accepts the other subtypes of mānasapratyakṣa: perception of pleasure and pain, etc.*

   *For another kind of mānasa-cognition that he takes to be valid – simultaneous apprehension of all of the phonemes making up a word after cognizing the last phoneme of the word – see Ślokavārttika sphoṭavāda 113abc: sarveṣu caivam artheṣu mānasaṃ sarvavādinām / iṣṭaṃ samuccayajñānaṃ. And how about conceptual perceptions / perceptual judgements (such as “this is a pot”); aren’t they a kind of mānasapratyakṣa accepted by Kumārila (or does he think their primary instrument is the external sense-faculty)?

   ***

   Das, Nilanjan (2018) “Object reidentification and the epistemic role of attention.” Ratio 31: 402–414. https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12214

   Watson, Alex (2022) ‘Pratyabhijñā: Recognition’s Nature, Cause and Object. Critical Edition and Annotated Translation of a Portion of the Nyāyamañjarī’ in Francesco Sferra and Vincenzo Vergiani (eds.) Verità e bellezza. Essays in honour of Raffaele Torella. Series Minor XCVII.1–2, Università di Napoli “L’Orientale”, Dipartimento Asia, Africa e Mediterraneo, Volume II, pp. 1325–1398. Naples: Unior Press. ISBN 978-88-6719-209-0.

   Watson, Alex (Forthcoming) ‘Jayanta on whether recognition can refute momentariness’ in P. Bilimoria, A. Rostalska, D. Singh & R. K. Sharma (eds.) Conceptualizing Categories: Texts and Context in Indian Philosophy. Festschrift in Honor of Professor ShashiPrabha Kumar. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature.

   Reply