I want to understand what is meant by “direct perception” (pratyakṣa / paccakkha) in Early Buddhism. Specifically, what did the early Buddhist texts mean by paccakkha or direct knowledge? How was it distinguished from inference (anumāna) and other forms of knowledge?
Please help.
Here’s what the suttacentral terminology index says:
paccattaṁ
Personal; individual.
paccekabuddha
Private Buddha. One who, like a Buddha, has gained Awakening without the benefit of a teacher, but who lives a solitary life without establishing a dispensation. The early texts refer to them a number of times but with few details.
I think the OP is asking about places like this in SN 33.51 instead:
“What is the cause, worthy Gotama, what is the reason why these various misconceptions arise in the world? …”
“ko nu kho, bho gotama, hetu, ko paccayo, yānimāni anekavihitāni diṭṭhigatāni loke uppajjanti—
sassato lokoti vā …pe…
neva hoti na na hoti tathāgato paraṁ maraṇāti vā”ti?“Vaccha, it is because of not directly experiencing form …
“Rūpe kho, vaccha, appaccakkhakammā, rūpasamudaye appaccakkhakammā, rūpanirodhe appaccakkhakammā, rūpanirodhagāminiyā paṭipadāya appaccakkhakammā …pe….
appaccakkhakammā sandhi would break down as “na + paccakkha + kammā”, and of course paccakkha would be “pati + √akkh + a”.
√akkh is “to see”, like the “akṣa”, eye.
pratyakṣa in later literature has a lot of epistemic baggage. I think the earlier suttas don’t really elaborate much on it, rather treat it as a self-evident term.
From what I understand from the places that use it, like the aforementioned passage, the crucial point seems to be seeing things for oneself, as opposed to just believing in the suttas.
So, one sees the forms, their origin, their cessation and the path to their cessation as an experience, rather than just thinking about it, or holding a view to that effect.
Or, compare it to inference: You can teach a blind person color theory, and they could reasonably infer that mixing yellow with blue would result in a green. However, this is just an intellectual understanding and a blind person can never see that this process really results in green.
But, it’s a tricky word, since the AN 3.39 has “paccakkhāya” as *“speaking against” / “renouncing” [pati + ā + √khā + ya], which is a completely different word with the same structure, a different word from “pratyakṣa”.
Here’s a quote from Bhante Sujato answering a question that might help:
Bhante Sujato’s reply:
"Nāma means “name” and it is intrinsically tied with the process of creating concepts.
There’s no such thing as awareness without concepts. The very existence of consciousness is co-created with concepts and does not exist without them; they are how the mind works. This is emphasized in DN 15 Mahanidana:
That’s why this is the cause, source, origin, and condition of consciousness, namely name and form. This is the extent to which one may be reborn, grow old, die, pass away, or reappear. This is how far the scope of language, terminology, and description extends; how far the sphere of wisdom extends; how far the cycle of rebirths proceeds so that this state of existence is to be found; namely, name and form together with consciousness.
The notion of conceptless meditation was pioneered in the 20th century. The underlying motivation, as always with these doctrinal innovations, was rooted in time and place. Western colonialists criticized Asian paths for being “irrational”, so the response was, “what we have is better than mere reason.” We can find this tendency in movements as diverse as Theravadin vipassana, Krishnamurti, or Japanese Zen (as presented by Suzuki). It is to this day uncritically repeated by countless meditation teachers, but it is based not in the Suttas, nor in Buddhist traditions, nor in actual meditative experience.
The idea that deep meditation leads beyond reason is true, but is easily overinterpreted. Certainly the path of meditation leads beyond the creation of explicit verbally enunciated chains of thought that western philosophers deal with, and which they call “reason” or “logic”. But to restrict the sphere of “concepts” in this way is to fall into the very fallacies that the western philosophies were guilty of.
In the formation of consciousness itself, concepts at a far more subtle level play a crucial role is shaping and directing the mind. The suttas, and all (so far as I am aware) ancient Buddhist sages and philosophers accepted two valid forms of knowledge:
Without inference there is no vipassana.
One of the problems is that we massively overestimate the scope of direct awareness. We can be directly aware of, say, a sight. But of course, we are not seeing a “tree” or a “house”, we are seeing simply light in its different wavelengths, i.e. “color”. Even this requires perception to process, for example, to recognize the difference between “sight” and “sound”. And this is the root meaning of the English “concept”: to see together, to grasp the unity of a set of phenomena.
Now let’s say this sight changes. Red become yellow. Formerly we saw red, now we see yellow. But did our eyes see the change from red to yellow? No they did not. Eye consciousness cannot see change, it can only see color. “Change” is an inference made in the mind.
In fact change can never be directly observed. It must be an inference, derived from comparing this state of things with a remembered former state of things. There is no such thing as the direct observation of impermanence even in one simple sense experience, still less in “all conditions”.
The whole point of insight is that we can look at the limited sphere of our own experience and understand by inference that all experience must be of the same nature. Only then can we let go.
The use of inference in this way is implicit in all the Buddha’s teachings about wisdom. In some contexts it is brought to the fore, as for example in SN 12.23:
A noble disciple understands old age and death, their origin, their cessation, and the practice that leads to their cessation. This is their knowledge of the present phenomenon. With this present phenomenon that is seen, known, immediate, attained, and fathomed, they infer to the past and future.
Whatever ascetics and brahmins in the past directly knew old age and death, their origin, their cessation, and the practice that leads to their cessation, all of them directly knew these things in exactly the same way that I do now.
Whatever ascetics and brahmins in the future will directly know old age and death, their origin, their cessation, and the practice that leads to their cessation, all of them will directly know these things in exactly the same way that I do now. This is their inferential knowledge.
A noble disciple has purified and cleansed these two knowledges—knowledge of the present phenomena, and inferential knowledge. When a noble disciple has done this, they’re called ‘one accomplished in view’, ‘one accomplished in vision’, ‘one who has come to the true teaching’, ‘one who sees this true teaching’, ‘one endowed with a trainee’s knowledge’, ‘one who has entered the stream of the teaching’, ‘a noble one with penetrative wisdom’, and ‘one who stands pushing open the door of the deathless’.
Thank you very much. In SN 12.23, it is hard to find the exact quote mentioned. I think it should be a different sutta.
I must admit, I have trouble following your post, Adutiya, as the Buddha was directly saying that not seeing directly is the problem to be solved… 
In fact, MN1 could be argued to be saying the same thing — rather than as an intellectual understanding, the noble disciples and arhats directly understand the various items.
But I found some curious things in your post as well.
This exposition seems hard to defend! I’m not sure if Bhante @sujato is ignoring the following, as the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā explicitly names:
sarvadharmāparigṛhīto nāma samādhiḥ
“the samādhi called non-grasping/non-appropriation of all dharmas.”
The surrounding passage says the bodhisattva does not “stand in” form, feeling, perception, formations, or consciousness, does not grasp them, and does not apprehend omniscience through a nimitta (determinate sign/mark).
Ven Analayo’s “The Signless & The Deathless” is a great exploration for the Animitta Samādhi, along with his “Perfection in First Bloom”, which explores the connection between signlessness, conceptlessness in EBTs and Prajñāpāramita.
He explicitly says nimitta “stands at the very root of conceptualization and linguistic usages,” and that bare awareness permits one to remain with seeing/hearing/etc. “before the onset of any elaboration of signs.”
"‘signless concentration’ maintains perception in its full clarity, only with the mind no longer processing sense data.”
A good example from the EBTs is AN 11.9:
They don’t meditate dependent on what is seen, heard, thought, known, attained, sought, or explored by the mind.
yampidaṁ diṭṭhaṁ sutaṁ mutaṁ viññātaṁ pattaṁ pariyesitaṁ anuvicaritaṁ manasā, tampi nissāya na jhāyati;
Yet they do meditate.
jhāyati ca pana.
If the sutta was talking about samādhi, there would be a reason to suspect it was talking about Cessation of Feeling and Perception.
But the word here is jhāyati, “contemplating”, and the sutta seems unusually interested in deconstructing concepts, rather than describing the cessation of experience.
Hence, many later schools, like Ven Analayo, argued for the “concept free direct experience”.
From that, we move on to Dignāga, who around the fifth–sixth century, defines pratyakṣa as kalpanāpoḍha, free from conceptual construction.
From the article below:
The distinction between non-conceptual and conceptual was first drawn by Diṅnāga who contended that all perception is non-conceptual because what constitutes seeing things as they really are must be free from any conceptual construction.
Nirvikalpa (pratyakṣa) (conceptless direct experience) is an important aspect of Yogācārins, Madhyāmikas, Ch’an, and so on.
Now, perhaps "concept-free meditation " was co-opted by less than honorable people for certain intentions. I do admit, that these kind of teachings are easy to be abused — just like the basic anatta can be abused by telling people that they should stop clinging to themselves and just respect the gurus.
But ancient buddhists demonstrably had a “conceptless direct experience” idea, and the accompanying samādhi, arguably since Prajñaparamita (~100 BC the latest), and arguably since the EBTs, according to some Theravādin monks today.
Their connections to EBTs could be reasonably debated; but to say that “The notion of conceptless meditation was pioneered in the 20th century”, seems like a rather revisionist recount of the Buddhist traditions, unless I’m missing something.
For a good overview, this is an excellent article of the ways the ancient Buddhists handled concepts & perceptions:
Sorry it I wasn’t clear, but the above quote was not mine, it was quoting Bhante Sujato.
