Jaina Concept of Memory

SR No.: 269116
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Mohanlal Mehta
Publisher: ZZ_Anusandhan
Total Pages: 7
Language: English
Classification: Article & 0_not_categorized
File Size: 90 KB

Page 4

3Fe79-89.97
stimulation of recollection. The emergence of recollection is necessarily conditioned by this sort of stimulation. Unless and until this type of stimulation is present, recollection cannot emerge. But how does the latent mental impression serve as the stimulus for the emergence of recollection ? It required another stimulus. The disposition of past percepts, though it may have continued for a certain length of time, does not operate as the cause of recollection unless it is awakened by another stimulus. The stimulus to excite it is admitted to be two-fold by the Jaina.' First of all, the person reproducing his past experience must be competent to do so. Now, what is this competence ? It is nothing but the destruction-cumsubsidence of the obscuring karmic veils. The second factor is nothing but the external conditions that bring the disposition to maturation. It includes the observation of similar objects and the like. Now, mere observation of similar objects and such other conditions are not enough to arouse recollection, since sometimes it happens that such conditions as the observation of similar objects and the like being present recollection does not arise. All the external conditions may be there to arouse recolletion, and yet, recollection does not emerge because of internal incompetency. Unless the mental make-up is efficient enough to recollect what has been experienced in the past, no emergence of recollection is possible. Mere external causes cannot give rise to internal activities. In coopertion with internal states only external conditions can produce certain mental functions. For this very reason the Jaina thinkers admit both internal and external conditions as the cause of recollection. One without the other is incapable of giving rise to it. However, when the requisite conditions such as the destruction-cum-subsidence of the obstructive veils, observation of similar objects, and the like, are at work to bring the latent mental trace to maturation, the disposition produces recollection. The contents of rec