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 185

CHAPTER IX .
. CONCLUSION The purpose of this treatise has been to present some problems of Jaina psychology. But no attempt has been made herein to build up a science of Jaina psychology; for, a positive science of psychology, in the sense in which the term is used to-day, was not possible at that early stage of knowledge. Psychological analyses were merely shades of the epistemological problem, and both, in turn, were parts of metaphysical investigation. However, the psychological theories and problems have been woven together here to present a coherent picture as far as possible.
The Idea of the Soul
The idea of the soul has been a fundamental principle in the rational psychology of the Jainas. The existence of the soul is a presupposition in Jaina philosophy. It is a pratyaksa. The soul is described from the noumenal and the phenomenal points of view. From the noumenal point of view, it is pure consciousness. Upayoga is the fundamental characteristic of the soul. Upayoga is interpreted, in this treatise, as horme in the sense in which McDougall used the term. It is the purposive force which is the source of all experience. All the three aspects of experience-the cognitive, the conative and the affective-spring from it.
Cetanā is a fundamental quality of the soul. It is pure consciousness, a kind of flame without smoke. This consciousness is eternal, although it gets manifested in the course of the evolutionary process of life in the empirical sense. The empirical experience arises out of the contact of the sense organs with the object.
Thus, upayoga is a driving force which is purposive and which is responsible for experience. It expresses itself into jñāna and darśana. This expression is possible in the light of cetanā. Cetanā is the background of the light of cognitions-of jñāna and darśana.
The Jainas recognize three species of conscious experience-the cognitive, the conative and the affective. They make a distinction in consciousness as knowing, feeling and experiencing the fruits of karma. As a rule, we have first feeling, then conation and then knowledge.1 McDougall's view of the primacy of the affective element in experience and especially in instinctive behaviour may be mentioned in this connection.
The Jaina thinkers were not unaware of the unconscious. The Nandisūtra gives a picture of the unconscious in the mallaka drstānta. The doctrine of karma as analysed by the Jainas comes nearer to Jung's
1 Pañcāstikāyasāra, 39.