Mahavira Jayanti Smarika 1977

SR No.: 014023
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Bhanvarlal Polyaka
Publisher: Rajasthan Jain Sabha Jaipur
Publication Year: 1977
Total Pages: 326
Language: Hindi, English
Classification: Seminar & Articles
File Size: 25 MB

Page 298

Right knowledge makes us examine in detail the matter brought into the mind by right faith. Of course both are mental processes; the difference is in degree, I see a nurse taking a boy on the pavement outside. This is preception. I have the right faith that there are a woman and a boy out there. I also perceive that the woman is a nurse. But I do not know the details who they are, where they live, why they are in this particular locality, and so forth. If I saw or or read about them, I should gain right knowledge.
This knowledge must be free from doubt. It must be retained steadily and based on firm faith.
Error is also recognized in Jainism. It reminds one some what of the ignorance (AVIDYA) of the Vedanta, the want of discrimination (AVIVEKA) of the Samkhya, and the illusion (MAYA) of the Buddhist systems of philosophy. Jainism insists that right knowledge can not be attained unless belief of any kind in its opposite (in wrong knowledge) is banished.7
The
The soul of man is indirisible, and our intellect cannot really consent, even temporarily to what our faith has not grasped; and our conduct can not but be coloured by over intellect, from which it springs. Faith and knowledge leading to right conduct are at once the process and the goal; for right faith dispels weak doubt, right knowledge preserves us from ignorance, indifference, and laziness and right conduct enables us to create the best life of which we are capable.
Right knowledge is of five kinds :8
1. ΜΑΤΙ ΝΑΝΑ
Knowledge which is acquired by means of the five sences, or by means of the mind of man.9
2. SRUTA JNANA
Knowledge in which on the basis of MATI JANAA one acquires know. ledge about things other than those to which the MATI JNANA relates 10
The difference between the two is thus stated. MATI JNANA deals with substances which exist now, and having come into existance, are not destroyed; SRUTA JNANA deals with all things now in existence and also with those which were in the past or may be in the future; an eclipse to-day may be in the future; an eclipse to-day may be known by MATI JNANA, but one in the time of Alexander, or one happen next year, can now only be known by SRUTA JNANA. Even a mineral or plant soul with one sense only can have SRUTA JNANA.
Mahaveer Jayanti Smarika 77
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