  The Buddhist epistemologists limit warranted perception to direct, unmediated experience only. Perception is regarded as necessarily involving contact (sparśa, sannikarṣa) between the sense and the object. Dignāga (following Vasubandhu) notes that perception is named after the sense rather than after the object (see AKBh ad I, 45ab). Thus perception, following the sense rather than the object, cognizes inexpressible particularities or the object as a particular domain of experience. Indirect perception, which is usually understood as involving some degree of conceptual discrimination (vikalpakajñāna) is not treated as perception proper. Unlike their principal opponents, the Naiyāyikas and the Mīmāṃsākas, the Buddhist epistemologists do not regard indirect perception as an essential step in the transition from pure sense data to full blown conceptual apprehension. 