Some Problems in Jaina Psychology

SR No.: 001260
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T G Kalghatgi
Publisher: Karnatak University Dharwar
Publication Year: 1961
Total Pages: 205
Language: English
Classification: Book_English & Philosophy
File Size: 13 MB

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SOME PROBLEMS IN JAINA PSYCHOLOGY
of these. 30 A table of classification of avadhi according to the Nandisūtra is given in table No. VIII. The first variety, for instance, is anugāmi avadhi. It is clairvoyance, which continues to exist even if a person moves elsewhere. Ananugāmi avadhi is the opposite of this. Vardhamāna avadhi is that which increases in extensity and extends in scope and durability as time passes. Hiyamāna is opposed to this. Avasthita is a steady form of avadhi which neither increases nor decreases in scope or durability. The sixth form of avadhi is anavasthitha. It sometimes increases and sometimes decreases in intensity. Such classifications of avadhi with their subdivisions have a psychological significance. It is possible that clairvoyant cognition may differ in different individuals in respect of intensity and durability of experience and the extent of the objects perceived by the individual. There are instances in which some persons get occasional flashes of perception, as in the case of a girl who got the intuition that her brother would come. In some other cases, clairvoyance is more or less steady, and it recurs very often. The Society for Psychical Research has collected many instances of such perceptions.31 The scope of clairvoyant cognition with reference to the objects cognized varies with the sensitiveness and extent of contact of the subliminal consciousness. Different persons can perceive different objects with different degrees of clarity according to their capacities. The Jainas have said that the lowest type of avadhi can perceive objects occupying a very small fraction of space like the angula. The highest type of avadhi can perceive all objects having form. However, avadhi cannot perceive all the modes of all things, 32
The psychic phenomenon called 'French sensitiveness', sometimes called as 'psychometry', may be included as a form of avadhi, although in psychometry the mind and the sense organs do play their part. There may be physical contact with the object. However, physical contact serves only as an occasion to create a 'a psychical rapport'. The rôle of the object coming in contact with the hand of the person would seem to be rather to canalize the sensitive faculty and concentrate it in the right direction, though we have no information as to how it happens.33 Dr. Osley gives many instances in which persons having this capacity have given detailed descriptions of the past or the future by merely touching the hand or even by touching a paper written by the person. He gives an experience which he had. An event in his life, an accident, was foretold twice. The man who described the future accident gave a vivid picture of the accident, of the man, a baker, bleeding and things strewn about. The
30 Nandisutra, 15. Tattvārthasutra Bhäsya, I, 23. 31 Tyrrell (G. N. M.): The Personality of Man, Ch. XX, XXI. 32 Viseşāvasyakabhūsya, 685. 33 Tyrrell (G. N. M.): The Personality of Man, Ch. XX, pp. 177–179.