The process of visual perception,
according to Advaita Vedanta, is described in
chapter 1 of Vedaanta Paribhaashaa thus. Just
as the water in a tank, issuing through
a hole, enters, through a channel, a number
of fields and assumes the shapes of those fields, so also the luminous
mind, stretching out through the eye, goes to the space occupied by objects
and becomes modified into the forms of those objects. Such a modification
is called a vr.tti of the mind. The same fact is also stated in Panchadas'i,
4.27, 28 and 29, based on S'rii S'ankara's
Upades'asaahasrii, Metrical portion,
chapter 14, verses 3 & 4.
The whole process of visual
perception consists of the following
steps:-- (1) The mind stretches out through the eye, reaches the object
and takes the form of the object. This
is called a vr.tti or mode of the mind. (2) The mental mode removes the
veil of ignorance that hides the object. (3) Consciousness underlying
the object, being manifest through the mental
mode, illumines the object. (4) The mental mode associates the object consciousness
with the subject-consciousness. (5) The subject
perceives the object. Consciousness manifest through the mental mode
coincident with the object serves as
the knowledge of the object. This is known
as phala (fruit), being the resultant
knowledge.
The mind has three main
divisions in this process, namely, (1) the part within the body, (2) the
part that extends from the body to
the object perceived, (3) the part that coincides with the object. The
first part above is known as pramaataa
and the consciousness
manifest in it is called pramaata-chaitanya.
This is the perceiver. The consciousness manifest in the second part is
called pramaaNa- chaitanya, or the means of knowledge.
The conciousness manifest in the third part
is pramiti-chaitanya or percept. The object peceived is called prameya.
Since the third part of the mind mentioned
above coincides with the object, prameya-chaitanya, or the consciousness
underlying the object and pramiti-chaitanya become identical. The point
to be kept in mind here is that all objects
in this world are superimposed on
Consciousness, i.e. Brahman. All objects are covered
by a veil of ignorance, which has
to be removed for seeing the object. It is only consciousness that reveals
the objects, since the objects themseves
are non-luminous.