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 250

Division of Knowledge
225
general condition for perception. Further, they do not try to distinguish perception from the other types of knowledge on the basis of appearance.
Sālikānātha defines pratyaksa as the direct (sāksāt) experience. Some logicians of the Nyaya school also have defined it similarly. But, the idea underlying the term 'säksāt' is a hard nut to explain. Nyāyamañjari defines it as an experience after which one feels accordingly; or it is a cognition which is: not produced by any generated cognition.2 Another logician: defines it as the cognition produced by the senses. But, all! these explanations do not help much in knowing the nature of directness. As a matter of fact direct means the cognition where the cognizer and the object stand face to face without any mediation where the object is directly presented. In the Nyāya-theory thc self with senses is the cognizer. When the object stands in direct relation with the senses it is a case of perception. To the case of inference this relation is mediated by the cognition of middle term; in the case of verbal knowledge it is mediated by the knowledge of sound and in analogy by the perception of similarity. In these cases the object is represented by other cogaitioas. According to the Agamic school of the Jaioas the soul is cognizer without any assistance. In the three types of supersensual knowledge the object is presented to the soul directly. In the case of sense-cognition It is presenteu by the seases, therefore, it is held as paroksa. If in directaess is accepted as the criterion of perception, which is favoured by the majority of Jaina as well as nonJaina thinkers, the difference between Jaina and the Nyāya systems is accountable to the nature of cognizer.
The Buddhist view is clear as far as the nature of pratyaksa is concerned. DharmakIrti holds that perception is always indeterminate or inarticulate.3 The stage of articulation of
1 Prakaraṇa Pañcikā p. 51 2 Nyāyamañjari p. 65 3 Nyāyabindu p. 11