Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c16.136

c16.136

It is, however, conceivable to picture a stage of experience in which simple sensory qualities appear as solitary moments of awareness. As James says : " Only new-born babes or men in semi-coma may experience such sensations." One of the commentators on the *Kārikā* points out that though the breeze carries fine particles of water and odorous particles, the sense of contact brings home to man only the sensation of cold. The stage of sensory experience, then, presents its several qualities, one at a time, each in isolation from the rest. Each of these, again, is limited only to the moment at which it appears in consciousness [*vartamānakālaṁ vāhyamindriyam* (Vāchaspati Misra on *Kārikā*, 33)].