Jain Journal 1966 10

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 22

JAIN JOURNAL
faith. The grounds of faith are in the self—not in any external phenomena and faith is an immediate form of consciousness, those external phenomena being only conditions of its evolution.
That the right faith is an immediate form of consciousness not interrupted by nor interfered with by any other consideration or form of cognition is also clear from the Jainas' description of it as consisting in jñāna-cetanā. The cetanā or consciousness of a being, according to them, is of three modes. In karma-cetanā, the consciousness of one's activities and efforts for attaining an object of desire is predominant while the second mode of cetanā, the karma-phala-cetanā is characterised by a feeling of pleasure or pain which arises from one's coming in contact with the object of his like or dislike. In the jñāna-cetanā there is neither of the two preceding modes of consciousness; the jñāna-cetanā is a pure consciousness of itself as it is in itself, uncontaminated by any sense of energising towards an object or by any feeling arising from the appropriation or nonappropriation of that object. The jñāna-cetanā is thus self-consciousness, pure, simple and above all, immediate ; and most of the Jaina thinkers identify samyaktva with the jñāna cetana in as much as the samyaktva is spontaneous faith which is not mixed up with any form of psychical activity or pleasurable or painful feelings or extraneous consideration. The samyaktva is thus a form of immediate apprehension.
Some thinkers, however, point out that while the pure jñāna-cetana alone is applicable to the vitarāga-samyaktva, in the sarāga-samyaktva, the two forms of the karma-cetana and the karma-phala-cetană are present. The very expression, sarāga, implies that the believer, having the sarāgasamyaktva has the rāga or the feeling of attachment and as such has the consciousness of his activities applied towards the attainment of desirable objects as well as a feeling of pleasure, arising from the attainment thereof. It is urged against this view that the rāga affects the nature of one's conduct only ; it has nothing to do with the nature of one's faith; so that it is always possible for one to have perfect faith or jñāna-cetanā, while conduct may be vitiated by the feelings of attachment or envy. This is one view regarding a person having the sarāga-samyaktva and the possibility of his having jñāna-cetanā. But the real reply to the objection concerning the sarāga-samyaktva and the jñāna-cetanā going together is that samyaktva and rāga cannot really go together. A man having rāga or a feeling of attachment for worldly objects cannot have samyaktva developed in him. In sarāga-samyaktva, the believer is not really sarāga ; all that is meant is that he moves in the world, the sphere of rāga, without any real rāga attachment to his nature,