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

Page 32

Introduction
and they say that this is the object of the Nirvikalpa or Pure Sensation. तस्य विषयः स्वलक्षणम्-न्यायबिन्दुः
प्रथम परिच्छेद To this view about the matter of the Nirvikalpa, the Jainas are opposed. According to them, a thing in its absolute particularity is not the object of Pure Sensation. The first Sensation is the conscious counterpart of a nervous shock, a bare and colourless affection or apprehension, apprising us of an existence outside. Ratnaprabhācāryya, the Jaina commentator says:
---------सत्तामात्रगोचरं निःशेषविशेषवैमुख्य न
सन्मात्रविषयं दर्शनं निराकारो बोधः । Pure Sensation consists in an absolutely formless apprehension of pure existence, bereft of all modes of particularity. Far from apprehending the particular aspect of the thing under observation, Pure Sensation, according to the Jainas, takes cognisance of the pure existentiality of the thing, which they all Mahāsāmānya, the absolute generality of the barest possible general aspect.
The Jaina and the Buddhist views about the matter of Pure Sensation are thus mutually opposed to each other. The theory of the Nyāya school, however, is that the general aspect of a thing is not a myth as accordng to the Buddhists. The general idea or Sāmānya, as it is called, has its counterpart in a reality attached to the thing. It is as much real as the particular aspect of the thing. Since we come in contact with the thing in Nirvikalpa, it is clear that both its aspects-its generality and its particularity--the Sāmānya and the Visesa (or, the Svalaksana, as the Buddhists would call it) would be the matter of the Pure Sensation. The view of the Nyāya school, then, is a combination of the two contending theories of the Jaina and the Buddhist schools.
What exactly is the matter of Pure Sensation, if it is possible at all, is certainly a fit subject of investigation, for the present day psychology.