Comparative Study of Indian Science

Author(s): Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: C S Mallinath

Page 16

it. External Reality is not only the one and the Secondless Brahman is. The Jainas criticise the extreme monistic position, urging that the doctrine of the Vedanta is opposed to direct perception as well as to inference.
Thus the Jaina philosophers establish the truth that there is External Reality and that it is knowablc.
The other object of valid knowledge according to the Jainas is the Self, Soul or Knowledge itself. This is opposed to the theory of the great Mimansaka School of Bhatta, according to whom Extraspection or observation of things outside the Self is the only function of the Self and that, in other words, the Self which knows all things cannot know itsell. The argument of the Mimansaka philosophers is similar to that of Mansel, Spencer and Comte, against the possibility of direct Introspection. "The thinker cannot divide himself into two," says Comte, "of whom one reasons whilst the other observes him reason. The organ observed and the organ observing, being in this case identical, how could observation take place?" The philosophers of the Yauga (Nyaya) school, on the other hand, contend that the Self cannot be directly observed; but that through reflection and retrospection, it can be observed indirectly. This Nyaya position is not dissimilar to the doctrine of J. S. Mill who, answering to Comte, says