Indologica Taurinensia

Author(s): Colette Caillat, Siegfried Lienhard, Irma Piovano, Saverio Sani
Publisher: Comitato AIT

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Piotr Balcerowicz
2.1. However, the second chapter of STP opens with the verse that distinguishes two kinds of the soul's cognitive faculties (upayoga), cognition (jñāna) and conation, or insight (darśana) 'S:
STP 2.1: jam sāmaņņa-ggahaņas daṁsaņam eyam visesiyam ņāņam / donho vi nayāņa eso padekkaṁ attha-pajjāo //
- 'Insight is the grasp of the general. Cognition is one, characterised by the particular. This modality of the object (viz. its general and particular aspect] is individually [the contents) for both viewpoints, [i.e. substance-expressive (dravyārthika) and the modal, or mode-expressive (paryāyārthika).
What the first hemistich of the verse states is that insight / conation (darśana) grasps the general (sāmānya), whereas the cognition (jñāna) grasps the particular (viśesa). Here the discrimination between the sāmānya and the višesa apparently does not pertain to the usual distinction of the universal (as related to the class notion, jāti, language and concepts, kalpanā) and the individual (vyakti, bheda). The dividing line is clearly the opposition between “general, indistinct, unclear' (for sāmānya) and 'particular, distinct, specific' (for visesa). Such a position was definitely liable to censure not only from the Buddhist side, in as much as it could easily be interpreted in opposition to perception (pratyakșa; called darśana), grasping the viśesa, and inference (anumāna), etc., grasping the sāmānya.
Besides, certain inverted, as it were, parallelism of formulations (sāmānya - darśana and višesa - jñāna) as compared with Dharmakirti's distinction of sva-laksana as a respective province (vişaya) for perception (pratyaksa) and sāmānya-laksana as a respective province (vişaya) for inference (anumāna) is likewise conspicuous. If the author of STP had been acquainted with Dharmakirti's ideas, he would not have failed, I expect, to enter into a polemics or elaborate on the issue, just the way Siddhasena Divākara defends his position as regards the distinction of darśana and avagraha (see § 4.2) against
15. I deliberately do not employ the term “perception' (reserved for pratyaksa) to render 'darśana', in order to preserve the distinct character of the two terms and to avoid hasty identification of pratyaksa and darśana, that in general epistemological discourse are often equated, but are often kept distinct in case of the Jaina theory of иpаyoga.