Samayasara

SR No.: 006764
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: A Chakravarti
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith
Publication Year: 1989
Total Pages: 370
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Agam, & Canon
File Size: 20 MB

Page 113

INTRODUCTION
95
Sense-perception becomes Parokşa, mediate knowledge, according to Jaina epistemology. In this respect the terms Pratyakșa and Parokşa are completely reversed in Jaina epistemology. What is directly in contact with the soul is pratyakşa and what the soul acquires through intermediary agent is parokşa. Hence the sense-perception is a paroksa knowledge and not pratyakşa as described by the other Indian systems. But Jaina epistemology recognises two kinds of supersensory knowledge, (1) awareness of objects in distant places and times and (2) contact with thought present in other individual beings. The former is called Avadhijñana which may be translated as clairvoyant knowledge and the latter is called Manahparyaya Jñana which means telepathy in the language of modern psychology. These two features of supersensory knowledge, Avadhi and Manahparyāyajñana, clairvoyance and telepathy are recognised to be knowledge of immediate type or pratyakşa since they do not depend upon any intermediary of sensoryorgans. Of course, the real pratyakşa knowledge is the supreme knowledge of Paramātmā when he gets rid of karmic bondage and when he attains Kevalajñana the knowledge par excellence. This knowledge is infinite in nature and unlimited by spatial and temporal conditions. In this belief that the Jivātmā is capable of becoming Paramātmā or the Sarvajña, we find similarities and divulgence between the various other Indian systems. The Mimārsakas whose fundamental doctrine is that the Vedas are eternal and apauruşeya not revealed by any individual person, do not believe in any Sarvajña or Omniscient being. In this respect the Mimārsaka system is wholly opposed to Jaina system of metaphysics and also the Vedāntic school of thought. The Mimărsakas who deny the reality of the Sarvajña also go to reject the doctrine of a creator and the doctrine of creation-Isvara as the Srsţikarta. In this respect the Mimā īsakas entirely agree with the Jaina and Sankhya systems in rejecting the creation theory. The Sarvajña of Parmatma in Jaina system is not a Sriştikarta or the creator. As a matter of fact, the doctrine of creation may be said to have been completely rejected by all the Indian systems and not merely by the Jaina school of thought. No Indian system, not even the Vaiseşikas and Naiyāyikas who speak of an iśvara as the Sșştikaria accept the doctrine of creation as bringing into existence of non-existing entity. That form of creation is entirely foreign to Indian thought. This doctrine is vehemently opposed and rejected by the Mimarsakas as most ridiculous contradiction. All systerns begin with the uncreated Ātmas or soul and the uncreated world of physical objects. Transformation in these objects, conjunction and separation between the living and the non-living in various forms are accepted and described by the Indian thinkers as the primary entities so combined or so undergoing transformations are all postulated to be uncreated and indestructible having a permanent existence of their own. In this respect also the Jaina philosophy