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

Page 158

SUPERNORMAL PERCEPTION
141
The question of the scope of manahparyāya is not psychologically significant. Those who accept telepathy as a form of supernormal experience do not make such a distinction. Telepathy is primarily concerned with cognition of the thoughts of others. It was, therefore, called thought transference'. In this, the mental states of others are intuited. But the objects forming the content of the mental states are not excluded from the scope of telepathic cognition, although it is not explicitly mentioned. However, it would also be possible to maintain that cognition of objects forming the content of the mental states may be included in the field of clairvoyant experience, because clairvoyance cognizes objects which are beyond spatial and temporal relations.
Classification of Manahparyāya
Sthānānga recognizes two varieties of manahparyāya as rjumati and vipulamati.49 Umāsvāti makes a similar distinction,50 He says that rjumati is less pure and it sometimes falters. Vipulamati is purer and more lasting. It lasts up to the rise of omniscience. We also get such an account in Pañcāstikāyasāra.51 Rjumati gives a direct intuition of the thoughts of others, while in vipulamati the process of knowing the ideas of others is manifested in an irregular way. Pūjyapāda Devanandi describes the nature of manahparyāya as intuition of the objects of the activities of the sense organs.52 He says that vipulamati knows less objects than rjumati, but whatever it knows it knows perfectly and vividly; vipulamati is more penetrating and more lucid than rjumati. One who is at the ascending stage of his spiritual development has acquired vipulamati, while one who is sure to descend in the spiritual scale gets rjumati manahparyāya.53 However, telepathic experience is itself possible only for those who have the right attitude, who are free from passions and possessed of rddhi. "It seems that the development of conception of manahparyāya stopped with Pūjyapāda on one side and Jinabhadra on the other. The later Jaina thinkers only took sides with one or the other, but did not make any further development."54
We have seen that, in the West, interest in extra-sensory perception is increasing. It is being investigated on an experimental basis since the establishment of the Society for Psychical Research. Philosophers, psychologists and other scientists have been taking interest in the problem. Prof. Oliver Lodge carried out experiments on telepathy
49 Shãmăniga, 72. 50 Tattvärthasütra, I, 25 and its commentary, 51 Pañcâstikāyasāra, 45. 52 Sarvārthasiddhi, I, 25. 53 Ibid. I, 24. 54 Tatia (N.): Studies in Jaina Philosophy, p. 68.
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