Tattvartha Sutra

SR No.: 006796
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Sukhlal Sanghavi, K K Dixit
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 2000
Total Pages: 596
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Tattvartha Sutra, & Tattvarth
File Size: 10 MB

Page 204

CHAPTER ONE
For no sense-organ taken singly can grasp all the modes belonging to an entity. Even the auditory sense-organ grasps only the mode of the form of sound belonging to the material particles that have assumed the shape of speech and no other mode belonging to them. Similarly, the manas too reflects over only some particular aspects of an object; for certainly it is incapable of simultaneously reflecting over all the aspects of this object. All this goes to prove that all the four forms of cognition avagraha etc. that are born of a sense-orgal, or manas chiefly have a mode for their object while they notice the corresponding substance only through the medium of this mode.
31
Question: How does the present aphorism stand related. to the preceding one ?
Answer: The present aphorism gives out something general, the preceding one something specific. For the present aphorism generally lays down that cognition of the form of avagraha etc. grasps an entity in the form of a mode or of a substance, while in the preceding aphorism the same entity has been specified in the form of bahu, alpa etc. through an analysis based on the consideration of number, form etc. 17.
The sub-classes of avagraha resulting from the difference that obtains between the different sense-organs as to their respective modes of producing cognition :
The contact of a sense-organ--acting in its capacity as what is technically called upakaraṇedriya-with its object is called vyañjana and when vyañjana takes place there ensues but avagraha. 18.
In the case of the visual sense-organ and of the manas there takes place no vyañjana to be followed by avagraha. 19. Just as a lame man needs the assistance of stick for walking, so also does a soul's concealed power of consciousness need-on account of its dependence on something other than itself an assisting medium for producing cognition. An external such medium are the sense-organs and manas. However the different sense-organs and manas are not all of the same nature