Dravyasamgraha

Author(s): Nemichandra Acharya, Vijay K Jain
Publisher: Vikalp

Page 31

Dravyasamgraha
direct knowledge through the mind, that knowledge is certainly not omniscience, as it is derived through the application of the mind?. And it cannot be said that omniscience is established by scripture, for scripture presupposes the omniscient...
Jain, S.A., Reality, p. 19-20.
Direct (pratyakşa) and Indirect (parokşa) Knowledge The basic principle of knowing process of the Jīva or the Atmā, and the variations in the knowing process of a particular Jīva are due to associated conditions. An ordinary living being has access to the environmental objects through sense-perception. Sense perception is through the medium of sense-organs of the body. Since they are parts of the body, physical and physiological, the sensory-organs are distinctly material in nature and thus distinct from the nature of Jiva or the Atmā. Senseperception therefore according to Jaina epistemology is the knowledge which the Atman acquires of the environment through the intermediary of material sense organs. Since it is through the intermediary of physiological organs of sense, perceptual knowledge cannot be considered to be immediate access of the soul to the environment-objects. Hence senseperception becomes mediate and not immediate. Direct contact of Jīva with the object is what is called pratyakşa by the Jaina thinkers. Since the sense-perception is conditioned by physical sense-organs, it is not immediate. Sense-perception becomes parokşa, mediate knowledge, according to Jaina epistemology. In this respect the terms pratyakşa and parokşa are completely reversed in Jaina epistemology. What is directly in contact with the soul is pratyakşa and what the soul acquires
1 The attention of the mind to several objects simultaneously is impossible.
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