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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or objective Tejas. It is said to be of four modes. The first mode is called the Bhauma Tejas, of which our ordinary Fire is an instance. Electricity etc. are the instances of what is called Divya or Abindhana Tejas. The digestive activities are said to be the functioning of the third mode of objective Tejas, called the Audārya Tejas. The brilliance in gold and other minerals is due to the mode of Tejas, called the Khanija Tejas. It is clear that not all these modes of Tejas are fire or modes of ordinary fire. That it is wrong to identify Tejas with ordinary fire is further evident from the fact that the Indian philosophers expressly held that Tejas in many cases is insensible. In fact, the Naiyayika's admitted four forms of Tejas. The first form of Tejas was that in which there were both visibility and heat. Sun's rays were the instances of this mode of Tejas. In the second mode of Tejas e.g. the light from a candle, there was visibility but no heat. We have an instance of the third mode of Tejas in the heat in a quantity of hot water, where there is heat but no visibility. In the fourth mode of Tejas there was neither heat nor visibility.
NYAYA CONCEPTION OF TEjas
"Phenomena of radiance and electricity" are said to be the expressions or functionings of the Ether of modern science and in this respect, it is similar to the Divya mode of Tejas, described above. The phenomena of radiance, however, is not explicit in the Ether which serves as the medium in the matter of visual sensation but all the same, the medium is Ether. The Naiyayika's also seem to have had some such conception in explaining the nature of Tejas which was responsible for the genesis of visual perception. We have seen that the Tejas which generated visual perception was an elementary substance, which instead of calling it the etheric medium the Naiyāyika's chose to describe as the substance emanating from the sense-organ of sight towards the object of vision. But in describing the nature of such Tejas, Vātsāyana says:—