ISJS Jainism Study Notes E5 Vol 04

Author(s): International School for Jain Studies
Publisher: International School for Jain Studies

Page 288

ii.
Consciousness that discriminates between what is to be avoided and what is to be adopted for life but cannot think of past and future (hetupade iki) Consciousness due to the knowledge of right scriptures. (
d iv dopade iki}
iii.
Saj in gamas mean the mental faculty of living beings (instincts) enabling their owner to decide the involvement in good and leaving the bad. Every living being has ten instincts like instincts for hunger, fear, sex, attraction, possessions etc. Nandi sutra uses k liki and no-indri interchangeably for mind. It is said to be the highest level of mental faculty and assigns six activities for it namely h (discrimination), apoha (exclusion), vimar a (enquiry), m rga (searching), gave a (fathoming) and cint (discursive thought). Hetupde iki is the lower level of Sa j and is generally concerning present tense only. Living beings with it are generally using the faculty to accept right food and avoid wrong acts/ foods. D iv dopade iki is based on attitude and / or vision. According to this, the person who has the right attitude (samyak-d i) is Sa j i and a person with wrong attitude is asaj i. This state of mental development is due to subsidence cum destruction of mithy tva-mohniya and rutaj navar iya karmas. Activation of mithy tva-mohniya and subsidence cum destruction of rutaj navar iya karmas results in asa j i- ruta. Asa j i 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.
Kund Kund in Pa c stik ya gth 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. bh van or attention: To contemplate on an already known object repeatedly for
deeper understanding. 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 rutaj na 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); Bh v na 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 bh vn 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 (Dar ana-yuga) when logic was the main criterion of truth realisation and
gamas as secondary, extension of rutaj na from the perspective of transferring knowledge to others also took place in the form of sy dav da (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 cognizer 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 rutaj na is of as many types (as the forms of speech or words and they are countless). This is the basis of the doctrine of anek nta for self-cognition, sy day da for its expression for others and naya for partial cognition by listener or speaker. Similarly classification of pram a (as organs of valid knowledge) is possible based on certain specific consideration as they can also be of countless types/classes.
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STUDY NOTES version 4.0