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A Note
on Nirvikalpaka
Savikalpaka
Perception
Bronkhorst
Johannes
Section
and
de
Universite
Iangues
de
et civilizations
orientales,
Faculte
des
Lettres,
Lausanne
Some ten years ago an interesting discussion took place in the pages of this journal.
It began with an article by Arindam Chakrabarti (2000) whose title betrays its inten
tion: "Against Immaculate
Perception: Seven Reasons for Eliminating Nirvikalpaka
Perception from Nyaya." There followed a response by Stephen H. Phillips (2001),
"There's Nothing Wrong with Raw Perception: A Response to Chakrabarti's Attack on
Nirvikalpaka Pratyaksa," which in turn was commented upon in Chakrabarti's
"Reply to Stephen Phillips" (2001).
This discussion, as is clear from the titles, concerns the need and even possibility
of nirvikalpaka perception. What Chakrabarti tries to do is "to show why we can eas
Nyaya's
(2000, p. 3).
ily do without nirvikalpaka perception inside the Nyaya epistemology"
of
indeterminate
his
is
"of
Indeed,
perception" (ibid.). These
project
purging Nyaya
and other remarks show that Chakrabarti's intention is not to destroy Nyaya episte
or impossibility. He is not just playing around
mology by showing its incoherence
with the idea whether there is a need for nirvikalpaka perception in a system that he
considers otherwise inadequate.
No, his reflections, as I understand them, clearly
cover the issue whether there really is such a thing as nirvikalpaka perception. And
his answer
In this comment
and
samklrna
ally. The same term occurs again in YS 1.42: tatra sabdarthajnanavikalpaih
savitarka samapattih, "The meditational attainment with vitarka is mixed with con
ceptual constructs regarding words, things and cognitions."1 It is understood in the
svarupasunyevarthama
following sutra, YS 1.43: smrtiparisuddhau
immediately
tranirbhasa nirvitarka, "When the memory is purified, [the meditational attainment]
without vitarka, which is as it were empty of itself and in which only the object
shines forth [comes about]." Given that YS 1.43 follows YS 1.42, it is clear that the
Philosophy East & West Volume 61, Number 2 April 2011 373-379
2011 by University of Hawaii Press
373
Here, then, the Yogasastra introduces a meditational state that is without vikalpa,
that is, without conceptual
constructs.2 We may be tempted to use philosophical
arguments to dismiss this claim as no more than the outcome of scholastic specula
tion about the mental states of yogis. I would, however, counsel against such hasty
dismissal. Philosophy may not be sufficient to deal with this issue. There are psycho
constructs can and
logical reasons to believe that mental states without conceptual
do exist. They contrast with "normal" states of awareness, in the formation of which
language acquisition plays, or has played, an important role. More precisely, human
beings have two cognitive styles, which in normal circumstances are simultaneously
active. One of these is due to language acquisition;
I call it the symbolic cognitive
style. The other cognitive style, the non-symbolic one, does not result from language
The non-symbolic
be experienced
on its own,
acquisition.
style can exceptionally
without the symbolic style (or with a reduced presence of the symbolic style). Such
are commonly, and broadly, referred to as mystical, and then tend to be
experiences
as giving a more direct access to reality than is available
in ordinary
experienced
mental states. The method that allows
elements
here enumerated
important
aspect
of yogic
meditation.
It seems
fair
to assume
that
the
yogic
nirvi
imposed upon each other. The Yogasastra calls attention to the fact that the nirvikal
be experienced
in isolation, and this agrees with our
paka state can (exceptionally)
of
the
state, on
understanding
non-symbolic
cognitive style. The yogic savikalpaka
the other hand, corresponds to the combined cognitive styles that are responsible for
"ordinary" perception.
The Yogasastra is not alone
374
no a priori reason to reject the very possibility of nirvikalpaka cognition. It is true that
other Nyaya texts claim that nirvikalpaka cognition can only be established through
inference and that they describe its contents in terms that are completely determined
It is possible that this particular inferred nirvi
by Nyaya ontological considerations.5
kalpaka cognition is open to criticism. It would yet seem one-sided and premature to
reject it without taking into consideration that something rather like it may very well
exist, and may indeed be experienced
by certain people in certain mental states.
These observations have their use in the discussion initiated by Chakrabarti and
Phillips, outlined above. Chakrabarti's claim that there can be no place for nirvikal
paka perception may have to be revised. Briefly put, if the position here presented
about the two-tiered structure of the human mind is correct, and if the nirvikalpaka
of Nyaya, too, corresponds to at least some extent to the non-symbolic
cognitive style, we will have to accept that there is, after all, a place for something
like nirvikalpaka cognition also in Nyaya.
cognition
Let us now have a closer look at the definition of vikalpa presented in YS1.9.
reads sabdajnananupatT
vastusunyo vikalpah, which we translated:
definition
This
"Vi
and
experience,
early date denied the existence of the world of our commonsense
attributed our mistaken belief in its existence to the words of language.7The
concep
tual constructs that we create as a result of knowing words are therefore devoid of
objective referents, and this is precisely what the sutra says. Yogic perception, several
Buddhist texts point out, is without vikalpa.8
Brahmanical thinkers, and most particularly those of the Nyaya-Vaisesika
school,
did not agree. For them, words do have referents, and indeed, they were convinced
that the world we live in corresponds in many respects to the one and only language
they recognized: Sanskrit. The ontology of these thinkers, as I have shown elsewhere,
in the Nyaya school. It is for this reason that Chakrabarti suggests that savikalpaka
The expres
Phillips (2001, p. 108) calls it verbalizable.
perception is propositional.
to justify this. Certain Buddhist authors make a point of
sion sabdajnananupatTseems
from Kesava
Misra's
Tarkabhasa
Johannes
Bronkhorst
375
..
. savikalpakam
'yam
jhanam
Savikalpaka
cognition
dittho
namajatyadiyojanatmakam
iti visesanavisesyavagahi
is connected
'yam
brahmano
'yam
syamo
. . .
jhanam.
with
names,
universals,
et cetera,
and
concerns
the
of savikalpaka
cognition with language is confirmed by the word
as
well
as
the
short sentences. Savikal
"name,"
by
examples giventhree
to
this
takes
the
form
of
statements and is con
cognition, according
passage,
naman,
paka
cerned with the relation of qualifier and qualificand.
Savikalpaka cognition has both
these features in common with sabdabodha,
"verbal cognition." Here, too, sentences
are involved, and here, too, the relation of qualifier and qualificand
is central. The
term sabdabodha,
is
for
reserved
derived
from
verbal
communi
however,
cognition
cation, from statements a hearer may be presented with. However, the different con
texts in which these terms are used constitute no compelling reason to think that the
end results are different. In savikalpaka cognition, too, a statement is produced, and
there is no reason to doubt that this statement is analyzed
in accordance
with the
rules that are valid for sabdabodha.
"verbal cognition,"
sabdabodha,
resulting from different situations:
statement
in Visvanatha
SiddhantamuktavalTappears
ory of the object produced
associated
Krsnadasa
(or
Sarvabhauma's?)11
the role played by "mem
I understand
this
statement
to mean
that,
according
to this
text,
verbal
cognition
and
savikalpaka
cognition are indeed identical, and that they are only distinguished by
reason of the fact that they have been produced differently.
We must conclude that, at least according to certain Nyaya thinkers, there is no
intrinsic difference between verbal cognition and savikalpaka cognition.
I do not know what effect the observations
above
1 - This translation
introduces
376
correct.
On the
nirvikalpakam,
yatha
prathamaksasamnipatajam
ca (Bhasarvajna,
Nyayasara, p. 1 76).
yuktavasthayam
yogijnanam
La Vallee
7 - Bronkhorst 2008,
pp. 28 ff.
Poussin
2007;
2004,
1937;
Bronkhorst 1993,
position.
pp. 71 ff.
9 - Bronkhorst 1992.
10 - Eltschinger(2009,
pratibhasa
p. 192)cites
pratJtih kalpana),
Pramanaviniscaya
which corresponds
1.7.7 (abhilapasamsargayogya
to Nyayabindu 1.5.
ed. Narayana
padajanyapadarthasmaranam
padarthopasthitav
Rama,
vyaparah/anyatha
/.
padajnanavatah
Sukla,
p. 264:
pratyaksadina
api sabdabodhapatteh
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