 The Nyāya view evolves in response to Buddhist account of perception. They regard perception as a cognitive episode triggered by causal interaction between a sense faculty and an object. This interaction first results in a sensory impression, nothing more than mere physiological change. This preliminary awareness, non-conceptual perception, is a necessary first step in the process of perception and is invariably followed by a structured awareness leading to conceptual perception. A cognition that is independent of preliminary sensory awareness cannot result in a perceptual judgment. The first awareness does not destroy the perceptual character of the second; rather, it facilitates this subsequent awareness. Non-conceptual perception is an indispensable causal factor for generation of conceptual perception, although memory, concepts and collateral information may also be required. It is important to note that the Nyāya notion of vikalpa (in their distinction of nir-vikalpa and sa-vikalpa) is different from that of the Buddhists. Unlike the latter, the Naiyāyikas do not think of vikalpa-s as mental creations or imaginative constructions but as objectively real properties and features of objects. Vikalpa in this sense indicates the operation of judging and synthesizing rather than imagining or constructing. Thus conceptual perceptions truly represent the structure of reality. Of the five types of concepts (vikalpa-s) recognized by the Buddhists, viz. nāma (word), jāti (universal), guṇa (quality), kriyā (action) and dravya (substance), the Naiyāyikas, regard all but the first vikalpa as categories of reality (Mondal, 1982, p. 364). Unlike the Grammarians, the Nyāya schools do not accept the objective reality of words; words are not inherent to the object presented in perception. Rather, the Naiyāyikas hold that the relation between word and object is created by convention in a linguistic community. Although a concept is associated with a word (nāma-vikalpa) by means of a convention, it is not merely a fabrication. For example, when someone brings garlic clove near my nose and teaches me by pointing to it that it is called garlic, then subsequently confronted with the garlicky odor and a similar clove, I can see it and smell it as garlic. Thus perceptual awareness includes knowledge of words but, insofar as it is perceptual awareness, it is brought about by sensory contact with the object and, its properties which exists independently of words.