Jaina Philosophy and Religion

SR No.: 001604
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Nyayavijay
Publisher: B L Institute of Indology
Publication Year: 1998
Total Pages: 500
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, & Epistemology
File Size: 12 MB

Page 216

188
Jaina Philosophy and Religion
help of sense-organs and mind, which are external instruments different from self. But in deference to common practice and common sense, the Jaina thinkers have accorded the status of empirical perception to those forms of matijñāna, which are generated through the instrumentality of sense-organs and recognised as perceptual in practice as also in the science of logic.
According to the Jaina scriptures, the transcendental perceptions are of three types, viz., avadhijñāna, manaḥparyāyajñāna and kevalajñāna. They are transcendental perceptions, because they originate without the aid of sense-organs and mind, and on the basis of the capacity of soul alone. So they are extra-sensory perceptions.
Avadhijñāna directly cognises physical objects irrespective of temporal and spatial distance. It has for its object the physical substances alone.
There are innumerable types of avadhijñāna. There can be such an advanced type of avadhijñāna that can cognise material mind-substance and even karmic material particles.
Manaḥparyāyajñāna too directly cognises the physical substances alone but not all physical substances. It cognises only those physical substances that are transformed into mind-substance. In other words, it can perceive nothing but the constituent stuff of the material mind substance. This means that it cognises the material mind-substances of the five-sensed living beings who possess the faculty of discrimination (sanjñā) and inhabit the human region. This is the reason why it is said that manahparyāyajñāna knows only an infinitesimal part of the objects of avadhijñana.
Manahparyāyajñāna does not directly cognise the external objects thought of by the minds of other persons. But, when the minds of other persons think of external objects, they assume modes i.e., forms appropriate to the objects thought of. And manaḥparyāyajñāna directly cognises these modes of the mind-substances of other persons. And the objects thought of by the mind-substances are afterwards inferred from these modes which manaḥparyāyajñāna has already directly cognised. Just as visual sense perception perceives the form of the written or carved script, even so manahparyāyajñāna perceives the specific modes of a mind-substance. Thus the perception of the modes of the mind-substance of another person is manaḥparyāyajñāna. But just as the knowledge which follows the visual sense perception of the script is itself not perception, but simply verbal knowledge, even so the knowledge (of the object thought of by