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Prasastapada writes about the causes and types of perception after giving his definition of perception. While dealing with perception of substances he mentions that the external substance can be perceived by the visual sense organ or by the sense organ of touch only. Such perception is possible in respect of substances (which are wholes consisting of parts, have intermediate magnitude (neither atomic nor infinite), and have colour as a property) provided that there are the common general causes and also the threefold contact between four things (between self and manas, manas and the sense organ, and the sense organ and the object). If these merely are the causes in respect of an act of perception, such perception cannot be anything other than mere acquaintance. Prasastapada’s own word is 'svarupa-alocana-matra', the component 'alocana' of this expression being, synonymous with 'grahana' and thus the compound is treated as equivalent to ‘svarupa-grahana-matra’ by Sridhara⁴. But though the factors noted here are sufficient for such a type of acquaintance these are merely necessary for a different type of perception which he refers to as involving a visesana for which these factors and their product, i.e., this acquaintance itself together onstitute the sufficient condition. His own word for such a perception is 'visesana-apeksa'. As we are not giving any causal interpretation to the component 'apeksa', the compound is being treated as 'involving visesana', i.e., in the sense that the substance the perception is about is held as 'possessing something as its attribute or visesana'. Since such a perception is distinct from the earlier variety this element of visesana qua epistemic visesana is absent there. Therefore, the phrase 'mere acquaintance' ('svarupa-alocana-matra'/ 'svarupa-grahana-matra') does not stand for perception of the substance as having something as its character or mark, although these figure in it as discrete objects. This variety of perception has later come to be known as and the other type as savikalpaka. But though Prasastapada himself has not used these words it is clear that he was able to draw the distinction in its essence. This will be clear if we consider Prasastapada's examples of perception of the visesana-apeksa type.

Prasastapada gives us six examples of cognition involving visesana.

(i)   (This) substance (dravyam) exists (sat).
(ii)   (This) is earth (en) (prthivi).
(in)   (This) has horns (visani).
(iv)   (This is) white (sukla).
(v)   (This is) a cow (gau).
(vi) (This) is moving (gacchati).

(Our representation of the examples is based Vyomasivacarya’s interpretation).⁵

In all of these cases something is taken to be a character of something else. In (i) this character is the universal of existence which is called samanya (general) in the sense that this is common to every such thing that can have a universal in it. Cases (ii) and (v) are examples of cognition where also a universal is taken to be a character of something. The universal involved here in these two cases is not such that it is common to everything that can have a universal in it, since everything does not belong to the class of earthen objects or to that of cows. This type of universal is called visesa in the sense that it is specific to a given group of things and is not present in others. In (iii) what appears as the attribute, ontologically speaking, is not a universal but a pair of horns which are substances and hence particulars. In (iv) the character is a given colour and that in (vi) is action. These two characters, being specific to their respective substratum, are not sharable properties. These are thus to be regarded as particulars and not as universals.

We have noted above that according to Prasastapada the perception of the visesana-apeksa type (savikalpakapratyaksa) is caused by svarupa-alocana-matra (nirvikalpakapratyaksa). He has not however given us examples of the different nirvikalpaka perceptions corresponding to the examples of the former (the six cases from (i) to (vi) we have been discussing). In our rendering of the examples which we have tried to make idiomatic we have used English words within parentheses showing them in the subject position although except for (i) in the corresponding Sanskrit sentence there are no separate words for them. Nevertheless, we assume that what is being asserted by those sentences may be represented in the way we have done to give them a look of idiomatic expressions in English. Prasastapada’s examples under reference are examples of cognitions involving a predicational structure as the visesana is taken as related to some visesya or subject. I have indicated what figures as visesya by using words within parentheses though in Sanskrit this is indicated by the use of the word for the visesya with appropriate nominal suffixes used in accordance with the appropriate syntactical rules. Given that there is a visesya in each of such examples and that we are not in error here, we can legitimately enquire about the nature and contents of the nirvikalpaka cognition for each of the examples. Let us first consider the first example:

(This) substance exists [sat dravyam].

This example is different from all others in that we have here two words in the Sanskrit sentence. The first word (sat) in it has been interpreted as standing for the visesana. It is thus also supposed that the other word stands for the subject or the visesya. As this is an example of perception we further suppose that the perception is about a single specific object. This fact has been indicated by us in our translation by the use of the demonstrative pronoun 'this' within parentheses. But the word 'dravya' ('substance') explicitly used by Prasastapada for the visesya (subject) suggests that it has been represented as a thing identified by the property of substance-hood. In later Nyaya such a property is described as visesyata-avacchedaka-dharma (deliminiting property for subject-hood). It is not clear from Prasastapada's writing whether such a property is also to be treated as a visesana. It cannot however be a visesana as distinct from upalaksana (as per their definitions by Gangesa)⁶ But it is surely a prakara that is often taken as visesana. If it is a visesana then like the other property (i.e., satta or existence) which is clearly a visesana it should also figure in the preceding nirvikalpaka perception as a discrete content along with the thing (substance) and the other property (existence). But there is no clear statement in this respect in the literature that may serve as the guide for us.

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