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 44

MÍND IN JAINISM
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view expresses the naturalistic approach to the analysis of mental states. Still, the metaphysical approach was not absent. The Jainas were trying to see the problem from a more analytic and empirical point of view. They centered their discussions on the various facts of experience, as in the waking and the dream state, in order to find evidence for the aprāpyakāri nature of the mind.
One more problem remains, and that is the problem of the relation between body and mind. This has been a perennial problem for philosophers and psychologists of the East and the West. The problem has a metaphysical and a psychological side. There have been philosophers who have made attempts to solve this problem. Whether it refers to individual minds and bodies, or to the general relation of the finite mind with matter, there are various possible solutions to the problem. Materialists say that only the body is real, and the mind or the mental is only the product and dependent upon it. The idealists lay emphasis on the primacy of the mind. The material is unreal, or it is manifestation of the mental. There are other solutions, as of those who say that both are unreal, or two aspects of some higher reality. The realists, on the other hand, emphasize the reality of both matter and mind. Similarly, there are many divergences, specially when referring to the relation between the finite mind and the finite body. The relation between the finite body and the finite mind may be: (a) a complete dependence, as when mind is regarded as the secretion of the brain or a sort of epiphenomenon, a product, a process and similarly by-product of physical processes; (b) that of parallelism, the two series, mental and bodily, corresponding step by step, element for element to each other; (c) that of reciprocity or interaction, the mental processes being the condition of the bodily, and the bodily of the mental. The Jaina philosophers discussed the metaphysical aspect of the problem. They were, at the same time, not unaware of the psychological side of the question. Still, the distinction between the metaphysical and the psychological was not clearly drawn. Mahāvīra points out to the Ganadhara Vāyubhūti that it is not correct to maintain that consciousness is produced by the collection of the bhūtas, material elements like earth and water, as intoxication is produced by the mixture of the ghātaki flower and jaggery, although it is not found in their constituents separately. On the contrary, cetanā is the quality of the soul. It is different from the bodily aspect. In this we find the refutation of the lokāyata view.59 Similar arguments are found in Sūtrakrtānga.60 In Pañcāstikāyasāra, Kundakundācarya discusses the problem from the side of the effect of karma on the jiva. On account of the rise, annihilation
59 Ganadharavāda, Part 3, Discussion with Ganadhara Väyubhuti 60 Sūtrakstānga Gatha 8, with commentary