Reals on the Jaina Metaphysics

SR No.: 001619
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: Shatnidas Khetsy Charitable Trust Mumbai
Publication Year: 1966
Total Pages: 430
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Religion, & Epistemology
File Size: 8 MB

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requires the aid of the senses for the purposes of its cognition. All the systems of philosophy recognise the five senseorgans of touch, taste, smell, hearing and vision. The author of the Nyāya Sūtra's maintains that senses are made up of fine matters of which their respective objects are made. It is said that Kșiti is the constituent element of the sense of smell, Ap of taste, Tejas of vision, Vāyu or touch and Akāśa, of hearing. The Vedānta view is not essentially different from this. According to it, the sense of hearing is made up of pure (Apanchi-krta i.e. unmixed with other elements) Aka
kāśa in its Sattva aspect. The sense of touch similarly comes out of pure Vāyu in its Sattva aspect, and in the same manner, pure Ap, Tejas and Kșiti in their Sättvic aspects form the respective bases of the senses of taste, sight and smell. Kapila, however, points out that it is wrong to suppose the Adhisthāna (abode) e.g. the Eye to be the sense e.g. of vision. The sense according to him is supersensuous (Atīndriya). He admits the non-psychical character of the Indriya's when he says that they are evolved out of Ahankāra. The Jaina philosophers hold that the Indriya's are Paudgalika or material in essence.
ASPECTS OF A SENSE-ORGAN
The sense-organs according to the Indian systems are not gross matter, as is often wrongly supposed. They are material in essence, no doubt, but the matters constituting their bases are matters in their most subtle form. They are non-psychical instruments for the psychical principle. The Jaina theory according to which the sense-organs are Paudgalika or material, nevertheless emphasises this aspect of the Indriya in a most conspicuous way and may be shortly stated thus:- The Indriya's, the Jaina's point out, are primarily divided into two classes viz:-Dravyendriya or material organ and Bhāvendriya or subjective organ. Nirvịtti and Upakarana are the two sub-classes of the former; each of these two again has two parts or aspects, respectively called Bāhya or external and Antara or internal. Nirvștti is that aspect of the sense-organs which is operative in the