It may not be out of place here to mention in conclusion that Kumarila Bha@t@ta was rather undecided as to the nature of the senses or of their contact with the objects.  Thus he says that the senses may be conceived either as certain functions or activities, or as entities having the capacity of revealing things without coming into actual contact with them, or that they might be entities which actually come in contact with their objects [Footnote ref 2], and he prefers this last view as being more satisfactory.

Indeterminate and determinate perception.

There are two kinds of perception in two stages, the first stage is called nirvikalpa (indeterminate) and the second savikalpa (determinate).  The nirvikalpa perception of a thing is its perception at the first moment of the association of the senses and their objects.  Thus Kumarila says that the cognition that appears first is a mere alocana or simple perception, called non-determinate pertaining to the object itself pure and simple, and resembling the cognitions that the new-born infant has of things around himself.  In this cognition neither the genus nor the differentia is presented to consciousness; all that is present there is the individual wherein these two subsist.  This view of indeterminate perception may seem in some sense to resemble the Buddhist view which defines it as being merely the specific individuality (svalak@sa@na} and regards it as being the only valid element in perception, whereas all the rest are conceived as being imaginary

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[Footnote 1:  See Prakara@napancika, pp. 53 etc., and Dr Ga@nganatha Jha’s Prabhakaramima@msa, pp. 35 etc.]

[Footnote 2:  S’lokavarttika, see Pratyak@sasutra, 40 etc., and Nyayaratnakara on it.  It may be noted in this connection that Sa@mkhya-Yoga did not think like Nyaya that the senses actually went out to meet the objects (prapyakaritva) but held that there was a special kind of functioning (v@rtti) by virtue of which the senses could grasp even such distant objects as the sun and the stars.  It is the functioning of the sense that reached the objects.  The nature of the v@rtti is not further clearly explained and Parthasarathi objects to it as being almost a different category (tattvantara).]

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impositions.  But both Kumarila and Prabhakara think that both the genus and the differentia are perceived in the indeterminate stage, but these do not manifest themselves to us only because we do not remember the other things in relation to which, or in contrast to which, the percept has to show its character as genus or differentia; a thing can be cognized as an “individual” only in comparison with other things from which it differs in certain well-defined characters; and it can be apprehended as belonging to a class only when it is found to possess