---
type: Concept
bundle: vedanta-epistemology
bundle_version: "0.3.0"
id: pratyaksha
title: "Pratyakṣa — Direct-Contact Cognition"
iast: "pratyakṣa"
devanagari: "प्रत्यक्ष"
description: "Direct-Contact Cognition. Not perception (Western sense-data model), not sense impression."
darshana:
  - Nyāya
  - Advaita Vedānta
school_scope: "cross-darśana (Advaita nirvikalpaka/savikalpaka distinction and antaḥkaraṇa-as-sense-organ reading foregrounded)"
text_source: "Vedāntaparibhāṣā Ch.2 (Dharmarāja Adhvarin); Advaitasiddhi §§ on nirvikalpaka pratyakṣa (Madhusūdana Sarasvatī)"
tags:
  - pramana-shastra
  - epistemology
  - advaita-vedanta
  - perception
  - nirvikalpaka
  - savikalpaka
  - cross-darshana
  - tier-1
not:
  - term: "perception (Western sense-data model)"
    why: "the Western model isolates 'qualia' or 'sense-impressions' as raw input that is then processed by cognition; pratyakṣa is the entire cognitive event of direct contact, not a pre-cognitive data-layer"
    instead: "Keep Direct-Contact Cognition untranslated; do not substitute the English term."
  - term: "sense impression"
    why: "imports the empiricist picture of passive reception of data; pratyakṣa in Advaita involves the antaḥkaraṇa (inner organ) actively assuming the form of the object (vṛtti)"
  - term: "empirical observation"
    why: "implies a scientific-observer stance; pratyakṣa includes internal states (joy, pain, doubt) as objects of the inner organ's contact, not merely external physical observation"
  - term: "qualia"
    why: "qualia are phenomenal properties in the philosophy of mind; pratyakṣa is an epistemological category (a pramāṇa), not a metaphysical claim about phenomenal consciousness"
  - term: "raw sensation"
    why: "pratyakṣa is already structured knowledge-contact; nirvikalpaka pratyakṣa is 'pre-conceptual' in the sense of prior to name-form recognition, not prior to the cognitive act itself"
  - term: "phenomenal experience"
    why: "the category of phenomenal experience belongs to philosophy of mind and consciousness studies; pratyakṣa is a pramāṇa, a knowledge-producing instrument, not a description of what experience is like"
related:
  - /concepts/pramana.md
  - /concepts/anumana.md
  - /concepts/nirvikalpaka-savikalpaka.md
  - /concepts/adhyasa.md
  - /concepts/mithya.md
timestamp: "2026-06-20"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Pratyakṣa — प्रत्यक्ष

**Not:** perception (Western sense-data model), sense impression, empirical observation, qualia, raw sensation, phenomenal experience

Pratyakṣa is valid cognition that arises through direct contact between a sense organ (indriya) and its object (artha). It is the first and most foundational pramāṇa, operative when the knower's cognitive organ is in direct contact with what is to be known — whether that object is external (a pot, a sound, a colour) or internal (joy, doubt, the desire to know).

Pratyakṣa does not mean "sensory data." It names the entire cognitive event of valid direct-contact knowing, including the contribution of the antaḥkaraṇa (inner organ) that takes on the form of the object (vṛtti).

## Etymology

From Sanskrit *prati* (before, against, in relation to) + *akṣa* (eye, sense organ; also 'axle,' the hub around which experience revolves). The compound means: that which stands directly before the sense organ, in immediate contact. The English "ocular" is a distant cognate (both from Proto-Indo-European *h₃okʷ-*, to see).

The term foregrounds *contact* — not passivity. Pratyakṣa is not mere exposure; it is cognitive contact that produces valid knowing.

## The Structure of Pratyakṣa in Advaita Vedānta

Advaita's analysis follows and extends the Nyāya account. The standard Nyāya definition (Nyāyadarśana 1.1.4): pratyakṣa is cognition produced by *indriya-artha-sannikarṣa* (sense-object contact) that is non-erroneous (avyabhicāra), definite (vyavasāyātmaka), and free from doubt.

Advaita adds: the internal organ (*antaḥkaraṇa* — manas, buddhi, ahaṃkāra, citta collectively) functions as an additional sense organ for objects not accessible to the five external senses. This means that knowledge of one's own mental states ("I am happy," "I doubt," "I remember") is a form of pratyakṣa — not inference.

### The Two Stages of Pratyakṣa

**Nirvikalpaka pratyakṣa** (indeterminate direct cognition): The initial contact in which the object is grasped but not yet identified by name or categorized by quality. This is direct contact prior to the overlaying of concepts such as "pot," "red," "mine." Nirvikalpaka pratyakṣa is philosophically contested: Naiyāyikas question whether it constitutes genuine cognition at all, since cognition seems to require predication. Advaita (following Madhusūdana Sarasvatī in the Advaitasiddhi) defends nirvikalpaka as genuine pramāṇa-generated cognition — the indeterminacy is epistemological, not a sign of cognitive failure.

**Savikalpaka pratyakṣa** (determinate direct cognition): The cognition in which the object is grasped with its name and qualities: "This is a blue pot." Savikalpaka is direct contact *plus* conceptual placement. This is the form most people mean when they say "I saw it" — but it already includes interpretation layered on the initial contact.

The distinction matters because *Adhyāsa* (superimposition — see adhyasa.md) typically operates at the savikalpaka level or between the two: a prior error (mistaking a rope for a snake) is a case where nirvikalpaka contact with a rope becomes savikalpaka cognition of "snake" due to the superimposition of a memory-form.

### The Six Types of Sense-Object Contact (Sannikarṣa)

Annambhaṭṭa (Tarkasaṃgraha) lists six types of contact relation (sannikarṣa) through which pratyakṣa arises:

1. **Sanyoga** — direct physical contact (eye sees a pot directly)
2. **Sanyukta-samavāya** — contact via inherence (eye sees colour that inheres in the pot)
3. **Sanyukta-samavāya-samavāya** — contact via double inherence (eye sees universal 'potness' that inheres in colour which inheres in pot)
4. **Samavāya** — inherence alone (ear 'inherits' sound as the sound is in relation to it)
5. **Samavāya-samavāya** — inherence via inherence (ear hears sound-universal through the particular sound)
6. **Viśeṣaṇatā** — qualifier relation (mind perceives absence as a qualifier of a locus)

Advaita modifies this taxonomy but retains the core insight: pratyakṣa is not one uniform mode of contact but a family of cognitive events united by the feature of directness.

### Mānasa Pratyakṣa — Internal Direct Cognition

Crucially for Advaita: *mānasa pratyakṣa* (mental/inner direct cognition) is how the inner organ (antaḥkaraṇa) perceives its own states. Joy, grief, desire, doubt — these are directly cognized, not inferred. "I am happy" is not an inference from behaviour or physiology; it is direct mānasa pratyakṣa.

This has consequences for the Advaita understanding of Ātman: while Ātman itself is not an object of pratyakṣa (it cannot be placed before a sense organ), the *sākṣi* (witness consciousness) that illumines all cognitions is sometimes described as *svayaṃprakāśa* — self-luminous, self-cognizing in a mode analogous to but distinct from pratyakṣa. See *sakshi.md* for that distinction.

## What Pratyakṣa Cannot Do

The boundaries of pratyakṣa define what the other pramāṇas must cover:

- Pratyakṣa cannot reach *Brahman* — Brahman is not an object that can stand before a sense organ. Brahman is the very ground of the cognizing subject (the witness behind every pratyakṣa). Therefore Śabda (Śruti) must serve as the pramāṇa for Brahman-knowledge.
- Pratyakṣa cannot reach what is *not present* — the pot in another room, yesterday's event, tomorrow's occurrence. Anumāna covers indirect knowing; smṛti (memory, not a pramāṇa) covers the past.
- Pratyakṣa cannot reach *absence as such* — whether the absence of a perceptible object in a perceptible locus generates a distinct pramāṇa (anupalabdhi) or is subsumed under pratyakṣa is the contested question that distinguishes Advaita/Mīmāṃsā from Nyāya.

## Cross-References
- [Pramāṇa](pramana.md) — the genus of which pratyakṣa is the first and foundational species
- [Anumāna](anumana.md) — inferential cognition; where pratyakṣa ends, anumāna begins
- [Nirvikalpaka / Savikalpaka](nirvikalpaka-savikalpaka.md) — the two stages of pratyakṣa analysed in depth
- [Adhyāsa](adhyasa.md) — superimposition; the cognitive error that pratyakṣa at the savikalpaka level can produce when prior impressions override fresh contact
- [Anupalabdhi](anupalabdhi.md) — non-cognition of the perceptible; contested relative to pratyakṣa as either reducible to it or genuinely distinct
- [Anubhava](anubhava.md) — direct experience in the liberative sense; related to but distinct from pratyakṣa as pramāṇa

## Audience Metaphor

Like the difference between raw video footage of an unfamiliar face (nirvikalpaka — contact before recognition) and the moment you realize 'that's my colleague from the 2019 conference' (savikalpaka — contact with conceptual placement). The recognition is a second cognitive act layered on the first contact, not a 'better' or 'more accurate' version of it.

## Citations

1. [Vedāntaparibhāṣā](/references/vedantaparibhasha.md) Ch.2 — Dharmarāja Adhvarin's full analysis of pratyakṣa in Advaita, including external and internal (mānasa) pratyakṣa
2. [Advaitasiddhi](/references/advaitasiddhi.md) — Madhusūdana Sarasvatī on nirvikalpaka pratyakṣa and its status as genuine pramāṇa
3. Nyāyadarśana 1.1.4 — Gautama's definition of pratyakṣa as indriya-artha-sannikarṣa-ja (born of sense-object contact)
4. [Tarkasaṃgraha](/references/tarkasangraha.md) §§6–13 — Annambhaṭṭa's detailed analysis of the six types of sannikarṣa (contact relations)
