it admits a gradual
development of perception as the progressive effects of causal
operations continued through the contacts of the mind with the
self and the object under the influence of various intellectual
(e.g. memory) and physical (e.g. light rays) concomitant causes,
it does not, like Vedanta, require that right perception should only
give knowledge which was not previously acquired. The variation
as well as production of knowledge in the soul depends upon
the variety of causal collocations.

Mind according to Nyaya is regarded as a separate sense
and can come in contact with pleasure, pain, desire, antipathy
and will. The later Nyaya writers speak of three other kinds
of contact of a transcendental nature called _samanyalak@sa@na,
jnanalak@sa@na_ and _yogaja_ (miraculous). The contact samanyalak@sa@na
is that by virtue of which by coming in contact with a
particular we are transcendentally (_alaukika_) in contact with all
the particulars (in a general way) of which the corresponding
universal may be predicated. Thus when I see smoke and
through it my sense is in contact with the universal associated
with smoke my visual sense is in transcendental contact with all
smoke in general. Jnanalak@sa@na contact is that by virtue of which
we can associate the perceptions of other senses when perceiving
by any one sense. Thus when we are looking at a piece of
sandal wood our visual sense is in touch with its colour only,
but still we perceive it to be fragrant without any direct contact
of the object with the organ of smell. The sort of transcendental
contact (_alaukika sannikar@sa_) by virtue of which this is rendered

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[Footnote 1: _Tatparya@tika_, pp. 88-95.]

342

possible is called jnanalak@sa@na. But the knowledge acquired by
these two contacts is not counted as perception [Footnote ref l].

Pleasures and pains (_sukha_ and _du@hkha_) are held by Nyaya
to be different from knowledge (jnana). For knowledge interprets,
conceives or illumines things, but sukha etc. are never found to
appear as behaving in that character. On the other hand we feel
that we grasp them after having some knowledge. They cannot
be self-revealing, for even knowledge is not so; if it were so, then
that experience which generates sukha in one should have generated
the same kind of feeling in others, or in other words it should
have manifested its nature as sukha to all;