Jain Journal 1992 01

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

Page 38

JANUARY, 1992
183
change into the effect called recall that consists in the recollection of past events. To express the same idea in a different manner, retention is nothing but the latent mental trace left over as legacy by previous experience. It is, thus the continued existence of a particular perceptual judgment for a certain length of time. Hemacandra further remarks that this latent mental trace should be admitted as a species of cognition on the ground that it is a category of comprehension. It should not be supposed that it is different from cognition as such, because if it were not cognitive in character, it could not produce recall which is a category of cognition. One kind of existence is impossible to be transformed into another kind of existence which is opposite in nature. If retention in the form of hidden mental trace were not cognitive in nature, it could not be an attribute of the self, inasmuch as the attributes of a conscious entity cannot be non-conscious in nature.13
Recollection is the cognition that has the stimulus of a latent mental trace for its condition. It refers to its content by a form of the pronoun 'that'.13 The latent mental trace is nothing but the disposition retained by our past experience. Its emergence to the surface of consciousness constitutes the stimulation of recollection. The emergence of recollection is necessarily conditioned by this sort of stimulation. Unless and until this type of stimulation is present, recollection cannot emerge. But how does the latent mental impression serve as the stimulus for the emergence of recollection ? It requires another stimulus. The disposition of past percepts, though it may have continued for a certain length of time, does not operate as the cause of recollection unless it is awakened by another stimulus. The stimulus to excite it is admitted to be two-fold by the Jaina.14 First of all, the person reproducing his past experience must be competent to do so. Now, what is this competency ? It is nothing but the destruction-cumsubsidence of the obscuring karmic veils. The second factor is nothing but the external conditions that bring the disposition to maturation. It includes the observation of similar objects and the like. Now, mere observation of similar objects and such other conditions are not enough to arouse recollection, since sometimes it happens that such conditions as the observation of similar objects and the like being present recollection does not arise. All the external conditions may be
12 Commentary on Pramana-mimamsa, I, i, 29. 13 vasanodbodhahet uka tadityakara smrtih-Pramana-mimamsa, 1, 2, 3. 14 avaranaksayopasamas adrsadarsanadisamagrilabdhaprabodha tu smrtim janayati
- Commentary on Pramana-mimamsa, I, 2, 3.