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

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Epistemology of Jainas a mithyādssti, is not rational. He strikes at the right point merely by accident. For instance, an intoxicant or lumatic does not recognize a thing as it is. He may take a cow for a horse and vice versa. He may call a stone as gold and gold as stone. Accidentally, he may strike at the right point also and call an object what it is. But, this accidental recognition of reality is not rational. It is based on eccentricity. We cannot recognize it as valid inspite of its correspondance with the reality. Similarly, the knowledge of a mithyādrsti, though similar to samyagdrsti in its outward form, is not based on rational ground. A mithyādssti also knows the jar as jar but he does not know in what relation it is so. He does not know that the existence of a thing is relative. It exists in relation to its own substantiality, space, time and state; while in relation to those of another it does not. A mithyādrsti cannot make out this distinction. His knowledge of existence or non-existence is merely accidental.
rūjyapādal states that a mithyādrsti takes a non-existent for existent, an existent for non-exisient and sometimes both of them rightly; just as a person in the state of delirium mistakes his wife for mother and vice versa. He, accidentally, strikes at the right point also and calls the mother as mother. But it can not be recognized as valid cognition. Similarly, mati etc. when not based on rationality, become wrong.
Four types of Illusion (viparyaya)
As a matter of fact the distinction between right and wrong, in this respect, is not discursive but philosophical. Pūjyapāda classifies the perverted knowledge into the following types :
1. Kāraṇaviparyāsa-Perverted notion regarding the cause of an object. The monistic Vedānta holding Brahman as the cause of universe; and other systems differing from the 1. Sarvārthasiddhi, I. 31 2. Ibid.