Disclaimer: This translation does not guarantee complete accuracy, please confirm with the original page text.
13
1. 13 ]
The meaningful words of matijnana (cognitive knowledge) are - the knowledge that arises from the soul's capability without the help of the senses and the mind is direct; the knowledge that arises with the help of the senses and the mind is indirect.
Out of the aforementioned five, the first two, namely matijnana and shrutjnana (scriptural knowledge), are called indirect proofs, because both arise with the assistance of the senses and the mind.
Avidhi (limit), manaparaya (mental state), and kevala (absolute knowledge) are the three knowledges that are direct because they arise solely from the soul's capability without the help of the senses and the mind.
In the Nyaya Shastra (philosophical texts), the definitions of direct and indirect are distinguished in a different way. In those texts, sensory knowledge is considered direct, and knowledge arising from inference (cause) and words is considered indirect; however, this definition is not accepted here. Here, the knowledge that is relative to the self alone is considered direct, and knowledge that has reference to the senses and the mind is considered indirect. Both matijnana and shrutjnana are to be understood as indirect since they are dependent on the senses and the mind, while the three kinds of knowledge like avidhi, etc., which arise from the spiritual capability without the assistance of the senses and the mind, are direct. Sometimes, the matijnana that arises from the senses and the mind is termed direct from the worldly perspective according to the previously mentioned definitions of Nyaya Shastra.
The synonymous terms for matijnana are: mati, smruti (memory), jnana (knowledge), chinta (thought), and abhinibodha (recall).
Question - Which knowledge is referred to as matti? Answer - The knowledge that pertains to the present subject is called matti. Question - Are smruti, jnana, and chinta also pertinent to the present subject?
Answer - No. The remembrance of a previously experienced object is smruti, therefore it pertains to the past. The harmony of the unity between the previously experienced object and the object currently being experienced is jnana or pratyabhijna (recognition), hence it pertains to the past.
1. In texts like Pramanamimamsa and other logical texts, there is a description of empirically direct knowledge derived from the senses and the mind, as well as other knowledge. For a detailed explanation, see the introduction of the Gujarati translation of Nyayavatar regarding the developmental progress of Jain Pramanamimamsa methodology.