Book Title: ISJS Jainism Study Notes E5 Vol 02
Author(s): International School for Jain Studies
Publisher: International School for Jain Studies
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DIES
state of mental development is due to subsidence cum destruction of mithyātva-mohaniya and śrutajñānavaraṇīya karmas. Activation of mithyātva-mohanīya and subsidence cum destruction of śrutajñānavaraṇīya karmas results in asanjñi-śruta. Asajñi are not able to indulge in right and avoid wrong activities. However it does not mean that they don't have the instincts at all but they have little traces of them only.
Kundakunda in Pañcāstikāya gātha 41.2 says that it is of four kinds namely:
i. labdhi or association i.e. capability to understand an object represented by a word. ii. bhāvanā or attention: To contemplate on an already known object repeatedly for deeper
understanding. iii. upayoga or understanding: To derive knowledge from cognition e.g. this is red and that is
blue etc. iv. naya or viewpoint: To understand the meaning conveyed by word with a specific
angle/viewpoint.
This classification of śrutajñāna is very important to understand the process of acquiring it. Labdhi corresponds to association of ideas (i.e. process of getting the meaning of one idea through its associated ideas); Bhāvāna is direction of one in idea with a view to get at the associated idea; upayoga is the process of understanding the meaning of idea consequent upon bhāvanā and naya is viewing the meaning from different relations. The first three are concerned with the psychic process of acquiring knowledge through the ideas contained in the books and the last is way of understanding things from different aspects.
During philosophical era (Darśana-yuga) when logic was the main criterion of truth realisation and agamas as secondary, extension of śrutajñāna from the perspective of transferring knowledge to others also took place in the form of syādvāda (conditional dialectic) and Naya (view point). This doctrine is based on the premise, “Object of knowledge is with infinite attributes and modes. Empirical self cannot know them all simultaneously by indirect means. Even if one knows them directly, like an omniscient, still he cannot express them through words simultaneously. Thus the expression of knowledge in words is always conditional and partial. When the cogniser has a specific objective or view point to know an object, then his knowledge is called as with reference to a specific viewpoint or naya". Thus śrutajñāna is of as many types (as the forms of speech or words and they are countless).
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STUDY NOTES version 5.0
