________________
175
sense-organs are the cognisers and they cognise the object directly and so perception by the organs is perception in the primary sense of the term. It is not so; sense-organs cannot be the cognisers of things, because being of the nature of aggregate of matter, they are corporeal, or because they are insentient and so on, like jar. Cognition produced by them is not, therefore, direct perception. Sense-organs are merely the doors to cognition and soul is the agent of the cognition, the cogniser, as Devadatta sees through the five windows even though the windows themselves cannot see anything. The five sense-organs are merely instruments and with their help the soul cognises things (1893).
Sense-organs and soul cannot be regarded as identical, because even when the sense-organs have stopped functioning, there is memory of the object cognised through them; and a person if he is absent-minded does not cognise a thing even when the sense-organs are functioning. This shows that the cogniser soul is distinct from the instruments, the sense-organs, as a person looking through five windows is distinct from them (1894).
One should not for a moment have a doubt that supersensuous cognition cannot give as much knowledge as sensuous perception, since in the latter the soul gets help from the senseorgans. In fact, the soul which gets no help whatsoever from the sense-organs i. e. an omniscient soul perceives much more than the soul functioning with the help of the sense-organs, or to be exact, perceives everything. A person sitting within the house and gazing through the five windows of the house sees a few things; but if the man goes out he is not obstructed by anything and he sees many more things. This is true of the soul also which perceives unobstructed, without the help of the senseorgans (1895).
Other reasons can be adduced to prove that sense-perception is not direct perception. A thing has infinite attributes, yet one can cognise through the organ of sight, etc. only a particular object with the attribute colour, etc. only. Hence
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
