Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism

SR No.: 001617
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: S C Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith
Publication Year: 1978
Total Pages: 272
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Epistemology, Nyay, & Spiritual
File Size: 16 MB

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130 :: Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism
the objects of his thoughts. But the thoughts must comprehend some objects, so telepathy, by comprehending thoughts, knows the objects of such thoughts also. Telepathy is mainly concerned with the thoughts present in other minds; but as these thoughts cannot exist without comprehending their objects, telepathic knowledge is not unconscious of the objects of such thoughts. If the objects of the thoughts about them are known without comprehending the thoughts themselves, it will not be a piece of telepathy. To be brief, we must not identify the comprehension of the thoughts about things with the comprehension of the things themselves. Akalarika perhaps, seems to emphasize this distinction between the object and the cognition of the object by mentioning the term 'bhāva-ghatādi' (knowledge-form of the pot, etc.) in his commentary. This implication becomes very clear, when Nemicandra distinguishes between two kinds of telepathic knowledge. “Simple telepathy knows the material objects of all the three times thought by the present soul. Complex telepathy knows what had been thought in the past and will be thought in future.”! Present thoughts are comprehensible by simple telepathy, and the thoughts that have passed away and those that will come into existence in future are known by complex telepathy. The dictionary meanings of clairvoyance and telepathy as 'faculty of seeing mentally what is happening or exists out of sight and 'action of one mind on another at a distance through emotional influence without communication through senses', also suggest that the former is confined to material (rūpī) objects while the latter extends to the mental impressions or thoughts of others. Thus thoughts are the subject-matter of telepathy.
A different view about telepathy is upheld in the Bhagwatisūtra. It states that the manaḥparyaya jñāna
1. Nemicandra: Gommatasära (jivakanda), verse, 441 2. The Conscise Oxtord Dictionary of Current Engiish, pp. 203 and
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