Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c16.s3.19

c16.s3.19

The details of the scheme are occasionally interesting; the sense of sight grasps not merely colour, but also configuration (*saṃsthāna*); e.g. long, short, round, square, high, low, straight, and crooked. The sense of touch appreciates the four elements, and also the qualities of smoothness, roughness, lightness, heaviness, cold, hunger, and thirst. These qualities fall under touch, because they represent the feelings generated in sentient beings by objects; thus thirst is caused by a touch which excites the physical body when the element of fire becomes active and predominates over other energies. In some of these dicta and in the general view the closeness of connexion with the Nyāya-Vaiçeṣika system is obvious.