imagination in Vedic/Indian texts

[Atimidus]

Respected scholars,

could you, please, suggest some ideas on the imagination faculty in the
Indian philosophy.

I.Kant, for example, in the "Critique of pure reason" on the one hand,
attributes facultas imaginandi to the sensual activities, yet on the other,
to the spontaneity of the reason. In the latter work, "Anthropology from the
pragmatic point of view", I.Kant reasons, that imagination is twofold, it
can be productive (exhibitio originaria) and reproductive (exhibitio
derivativa). First one is connected only with perception of time and space
and the second reproduces images from the previous experience solely. One
could think that productive imagination can be creative, since reproductive
one only combines sensual data, but I.Kant deprives it of this facility,
giving the example of the blind person, who cannot have the feeling of the
colors. Do schools of Indian thought agree, that one has to perceive
something first, before imagining? What is the role of the imagination in
the cognition according to the Indian thought?

Thank you,
Timoschuk Alexey
Lecturer in History of religion
Vladimir University