Alaukika or extraordinary perception is of three kinds. The first called samanyalaksana-, when we ask whether all men are mortal, question raised is as to whether mortality is true, not of this 63-65. For a fuller account, vide S.C. Chatterjee.

The Nyaya Knowledge or that man only, nor of all men who are dead and gone, but of all men in the past, present and future. But such a query I presupposes some knowledge of the class of men. But the question is: how do we know the whole class of men?

We cannot know it by ordinary perception, since all men cannot be physically present to our senses. Yet we must somehow know all men.

The Naiyayika explains this knowledge of the class by extraordinary perception, in which the class man is presented through the class essence or the universal ‘manhood’.

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When I perceive a man ‘as man’, I do perceive the manhood in him; otherwise I cannot directly recognise him as man.

Now this direct knowledge or perception of the universal ‘manhood’ is the medium through which I perceive all men or the class of men. To perceive mahood is to perceive all men so far as they are possessed of the universal ‘manhood’.

In short, to perceive manhood is to perceive all men as the individuals in which the universal ‘manhood’ inheres.

This perception of the class of men, being due to the perception of the universal (samanya), is called samanya-laksana perception and is marked off as extraordinary (alaukika) on account of its obvious difference from our ordinary perceptions.

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The second kind of extraordinary perception is called jnanalaksana. We often use such expressions as ‘ice looks cold’, ‘the stone looks hard’, ‘the grass looks soft’, and so forth.

This means that the coldness of ice, the hardness of a stone, and the softness of luxuriant grass are perceived by us with our eyes.

But the question is: how can the eyes perceive touch qualities, like hardness and softness, which can ordinarily be sensed only by the sense of touch?

Among Western psychologists, Wundt, Wafl|! and Stout explain such perceptions by ‘complication’, a process which sensations or perceptions of different senses become so closely associated as to become integral parts of a single erception.

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Similarly, when on ‘seeing’ something one says, ‘I a piece of fragrant sandalwood’, one has a perception of its fragrance by means of one’s eyes. How can we explain this visual perception of fragrance which can be ordinarily sensed only by the sense of smell?

The Naiyayika says that here our past olfactory experience of fragrance as closely associated with the visual appearance of sandalwood (since every time we smelt it we saw its colour, unless that was in a dark room) is vividly revived and brings about the present visual perception of fragrance simultaneously with that of its colour.

This present perception of fragrance, being due to the revived past knowledge of fragrance (saurabhajnana), has been called jnanalaksana perception, which is also extraordinary in the sense that it is brought about by a sense organ which is not ordinarily capable of perceiving fragrance.

The Naiyayikas also explain illusion, e.g., of a snake in a rope, as a case of jnanalaksana perception.

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The third kind of extraordinary perception is called yogaja. It is the intuitive perception of all objects past and future, hidden and infinitesimal by one that possesses some supernatural power generated in the mind by devout meditation (yogabhyasa).

In the case of those who have attained spiritual perfection (yukta), such intuitive knowledge of all objects is constant and spontaneous.

In the case of others who are on the way to perfection (yunjana), it requires the help of concentration an auxiliary condition.