Philosophy and Psychology of Jainas

SR No.: 269080
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Z_Selected_Speeches_of_V_R_Gandhi_002018.pdf
Publication Year: 1964
Total Pages: 26
Language: English
Classification: Article & Jainism
File Size: 581 KB

Page 7

The Jaina philosophy also teaches that each soul (Ätman) is a separate individuality, uncreated, and eternal in existence, that each individual soul has lived from time without beginning in some embodied state, evolving from the lower to the higher condition through the law of Karma, or cause and effect; that so long as the Karmas (forces generated in previous lives) have not been fully worked out, it has, after physical death, to form another body, until through evolutionary processes it unfolds its absolute purity. Its full perfection is then manifested. This perfection of the individuality is the Jaina Nirvāna or Mukti. The individuality is not merged into anything: neither is it annihilated. The process of this development, or salvation, may be said simply to consist in right realization, right knowledge, and right life, the details of which are many.
I will now say a few words about Jaina Psychology. There are five Gateways of Knowledge, all unfolding through the laws of evolution and Karma. The first is the senses. In the lowest form of life, there is only one sense that of touch. In higher forms of life, there are two, three, four, and (as in animals, birds, fish and men) five senses. Through the senses a limited form of knowledge is unfolded. The second source is study and reading. The third is Avadhi, or the psychic faculty, through which finer and more subtle things are known. The fourth is mind-knowing, by which the mental processes of others are known and understood.* The fifth is
• This is not to be confounded with telepathy, or direct thoughttransference, in which a conscious relation has to be established be1ween the agent and the recipient, since in genuine mind-knowledge the developed man knows the mental activities of others without their trying to communicate them to him.
21