Jaina Psychology

SR No.: 006570
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Mohanlal Mehta
Publisher: Sohanlal Jain Dharm Pracharak Samiti Amrutsar
Publication Year: 1955
Total Pages: 238
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 13 MB

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JAINA PSYCHOLOGY
They hold that clairvoyance and telepathy are primary data of scientific observation. Those endowed with this power can grasp the secret thoughts of other individuals without using their senseorgans. They also perceive events more or less remote in space and time. They realise that telepathy or some mode of acquiring knowledge which is super-normal, must be admitted, because in case of refusal of such a cognition we stand helpless in the face of wellattested phenomena which neither can be accounted for nor can be rejected.
CLAIRVOYANCE
The Jaina admits of three types of extra-sensory perception: clairvoyance which he calls avadhi, telepathy which is named manahparyaya, and omniscience or sarva jñatva. Omniscience occurs on the entire annihilation of all the obscuring (ghātin) karmic veils. But when there are differences in the removal of these veils, there occur two varieties of supra-sensory perception, viz., clairvoyance and telepathy.
The jurisdiction of clairvoyance is confined to material objects. The highest type of clairvoyance can perceive all the objects possessing form. However, it cannot cognise all the modes of all of them. The lowest type of clairvoyance perceives the object occupying a very small fraction of space.
TELEPATHY
Telepathy is the cognition of the states of the minds of others. The mind, according to the Jaina doctrine of karma, is a peculiar material substance transformed into the act of thinking. Its different states are nothing but the various modes emerging into the acts of thought. The direct cognition of these modes independent of the assistance of the sense-organs and mind is called telepathy. It is confined to the abode of human beings. Its emergence is conditioned by the possession of a particular type of conduct. In other words, the person possessing the faculty of telepathy is necessarily an ascetic. His character must be of a higher type. The Jaina admits of two varieties of telepathy: rjumati and vipulamati. The latter variety is purer and everlasting, i.e., lasts up to the dawn of omniscience. The former one is less pure and sometimes trembles, too. The function of telepathy is in the shape of the direct comprehension