Illuminator of Jaina Tenets

Author(s): Tulsi Acharya
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

Page 76

Illuminator of Jaina Tenets
[ Lustre II
avisesiyā mai-mainānam ca maiannāņaṁ ca.
visesiyā sammadiţthissa mai maināņam. • micchādiţthissa mai maiannāņam. yatpunar jñānābhāvarūpam audayikam ajñānam tasya nātrollekhaḥ. manahparyāyakevalayos tu samyagdrstişv eva bhāvād ajñānāni trīṇy eva.
(Aph.) Perceptual cognition (mati), verbal knowledge (śruta) and para-clairvoyance (vibhanga) are nescience on account of their association with perverse faith. (XXXIII)
(Gloss) Vibhangal refers to the category of avadhi or supersensuous cognition of matter.
The experience, even consequent upon the destruction-cumsubsidence of the knowledge-covering karman, of a person possessed of perverted faith (mithyātva) is called nescience (ajñāna)a on account of its association with the perversion. There is the following scriptural text in support of our contention :
* The generic mati is (twofold) : mati-knowledge and mati-nescience.
* The specific mati of the person of right faith is mati-knowledge. * The mati of the person of perverted faith is mati-nescience.
The ignorance and complete absence of knowledge consequent upon the rise of the relevant karman is, however, not referred to here. The types of nescience are only three in number inasmuch as the remaining two varieties of knowledge, viz. the mind-reading and pure and perfect) knowledge can be possessed only by a person of right faith and as such are necessarily varieties of knowledge and not nescience.
(Note) The three varieties of cognition may be authentic as well as unauthentic. On account of the emergence of a wrong belief and perverted faith, these cognitions are vitiated. The aberration of avadhi is called vibhanga (the prefix vi has the value of viparita, contrary). We have coined the word para-clairvoyance for the Sanskrit expression vibhanga, using para in the sense of perverse. It is called so because the variety of avadhi which goes wrong under the influence of perverted faith gives only a wrong view that is opposed to the reality as it is in itself. The prefix vi in vibhanga may also be interpreted in the sense of variety. Thus vibhanga is the kind of varieties of bhanga, implying indecision and doubt. 1 Vibhanga means 'what is possessed of different aspects'. 2 The term ajñāna is a negative compound, the negative particle nañ is substituted by
a in the compound, standing for the sense of demeritorious'. The knowledge here is
demeritorious because of its association with a perverted faith, 3 Nandisuttam, 36, (Jaina Vishva Bharati edition),