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JAIN JOURNAL : Vol-XXXIV, No. 2 October 1999
knowledge either in cognitive percepective or perceptual purposes, but the general idea behind them is the sansarga (contact) of central sensory the mind with tactual organ that is sense organs. 17 It can be explained like that, the contact of object with sense organs results in cognition through mind. Soul, the conscious entity is united with the mind, the mind with the senses, and then the unification of senses with the object, and perception of that object is operated.18 Hence, one may opine that in the case or process of perception or attainment of knowledge of an object fourfold contactual operations are processed.
It is clear that knowledge is a manifestation of an object. That manifestation is meant as illumination of the subject or object or both and the concept underlying in that way varies. The Vedāntins believe that the object is related with the subject through the mode of antahakarana which goes out through the medium of sense and transform itself into the form of object. They called that process as anirvacanakhyāti. Bhatta Mimamsakās define that process under the heading of Viparitakhyāti and the Naiyaika-Vaiseșikas explain it as anyathākhyāti. Prabhakara Mimāmsaka anchors with akhyātivāda while the Buddhists are prejudiced with Ātmakhyātivada. Sāmkhya is adherent to Sadasatkhyāti. 19
Like Naiyaikas, the Jainas do accept that the external subjects should not apprehend as sūnyarūpa or jñānarüpa. It may be supposed that Jain scholars are trying to define the process of knowledge as anayathākhyāti, but has some peculiarities. They contend that knowledge can cover the whole universe and they believe in subjective and objective simultaneously. According to them, soul is the basic conscious element and has the ability to perceive all the objects. The soul does not come into direct contact with the objects; nor are they represented by via media, but illumined by the soul when the obscurances of karmans are vanished or destroyed.
Therefore, in view of Jainism, caused by knowledge means the removal of the obscurance the karmans which naturally results in the illumination of an object. Further, it is also explained by them that this illumination is not a quality generated in the object. The knowledge is a totally subjective phenomenon. Illumination is also a function of soul. For this, they use the term Upayoga which means attention 20 17. Vaiseșikasūtra, 4/1/13. 18. Vedantaparibhāsā, IV, Edt. G.S. Musalgaonkar. Chowakhambha
Publication. Varanas, 4th Edn. 1993, p. 62. 19. Parvato Vahnimana.....Pratyksatvam. Ibid., p. 62. 20. Upayogo laksanam, 2/8 Tattavärthsütra, Vivecaka : Pt. Sukhlal Sanghavi.
Parshvanath Vidyapith. Varanasi.
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