Our Sense organs

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The eye recognizes the quality called tangible form, " rupa " , which means colour,

size, shape, etc. White, yellow, green, red, brown are some of the colours. The

nose perceives pleasant and unpleasant smells. Heat and cold are known by the

skin. The tongue apprehends the six different flavours(rasas). Thus there are

five different sense organs for five different qualities and they are called

jnanendriyas.

 

Without the sense organs or indriyas the quality of an object will not be

recognised. If we had six organs we could perhaps know six gunas or qualities

and if we had a thousand sense organs we could perhaps appreciate a thousand

qualities. We have no knowledge of all objects of the universe. If we did not

possess the sense organ of touch we would not be able to feel heat and cold. We

cannot claim that we have knowledge of cold or heat (that is we can feel heat

and cold) because they exist. We recognise qualities only be means of our sense

organs. The blind and the deaf do not perceive form or sound though form and

sound do exist in the world. All the five qualities, form, flavor, smell, touch,

and sound, are known respectively with the eye, tongue, nose, skin and ear. The

Lord had invested the pancabhutas, the five elements, with these five qualities.

The earth has all the five gunas or qualities. It has form and flavour. Our

body, aubergines, jaggery- all are earth. Earth has smell. The fragrant flower

is indeed earth. Earth has qualities like cold and heat known by the sense of

touch and it has also sound. If you drop one end of a string to earth and keep

the other end of it to your ear you will hear sound. Water has four qualities

but not smell. It smells only when we mix perfume in it. If we beat its surface

it sounds. Though earth has all the five qualities its special quality is smell

which is absent in the other four elements. The special quality of water is

flavour. Without water there is no rasa. That is why the sense organ of taste,

the tongue, is always wet. If the tongue becomes dry you will not be able to

appreciate any taste. As a matter of fact, the word " rasa " itself also means

water. Fire has neither smell nor flavour but it has form, sound and touch, form

being its special quality. Vayu or air has no form, but it has sound and touch-

the last-mentioned is its special quality. That is how we know when the wind

blows on us. Akasa or space has only one quality, sound