Jaina Epistemology

SR No.: 006738
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Indra Chandra Shastri
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith
Publication Year: 1990
Total Pages: 516
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 21 MB

Page 126

The General Conception of Knowledge
objects having smaller size. It means that the self is always in contact with the mind. When the both entities are eternal, their contact also is eternal. Eternity of contact would involve the eternity of consciousness. This would render the state of sleep an impossibility; which, according to Nyaya, is without consciousness. The Nyaya tries to explain this difficulty in various ways; but, none of them is convincing. According to one explanation, in the state of sleep the mind enters into an artery known as puritat; and thus breaks contact with the self. Dinakar gives an account of this disjunction, but fails to explain the fundamental difficulty. It does not give any explanation to the objection, related with the size of the self, when it is all-pervasive, how the mind can go beyond it?
A modern school of the NV. holds the contact of mind with the tactual sense as the general condition for consciousness. The tactual sense is an airy composition occupying the whole body. The artery of purftat is free from it. Thus, when the mind enters into the puritat the contact with tactual sense is Jost, and there is no consciousness in that state.
1. Muktavali p. 129; Kārikāvalī 26
2. Prasastapādabhāṣya, p. 186; Muktavalf, p. 246 3. Dinakari p. 248
This explanation also is not free from fault. If the mind, in the state of consciousness, is always in contact with tactual sense, the tactual experience also should appear constantly, besides the other experiences. An explanation is given to this difficulty that although tactual experience occurs with every other experience, it is not felt as the other cognitions inhibit it. According to another view, associated with Pakṣadhara Miśra, the contact between mind and skin, not the tactual organ, is the general condition for consciousness. But this
4. Prasastapādabhāṣya p. 186; Muktāvalī p. 246.
5. Dinakari 248.
6. Vaiseṣikasūtravṛtti 3.2.1 7. Ibid.
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