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Jaina Ethics and Miscellaneous Customs and Manners
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family (kula ), (iv) caste (jāti), (v) power (bala), (vi) affluence or accomplishments (rddhi), (vii) religious austerities (tapa ) and (viii) person ( vapu).
The Jaina works describe at length the glory of right faith and enumerate the benefits which can be accrued by a person possessing right faith. They go to the extent of declaring that asceticism without faith is definitely inferior to faith without asceticism and that even a low caste man possessing right faith can be considered as a divine being. The right faith is, in short, given precedence over right knowledge and conduct, because it acts as a pilot in guiding the soul towards Moksha.29 (II) Right Knowledge :
On attaining right belief it is considered desirable to strive after right knowledge. Although right belief and right knowledge are contemporaneous there is yet a clear relation of cause and effect between them, just as ihere is between a lamp and its light. Right knowledge is that which reveals the nature of things neither insufficiently, nor with exaggeration, nor falsely, but exactly as it is and that too with certainty. Such knowledge must be free from doubt, perversity and vagueness. Jainism insists that right knowledge cannot be attained, unless belief of any kind in its opposite, that is, in wrong knowledge is banished. Knowledge is of five kinds : (i) Mati-jñāna (Sense-knowledge):
Knowledge of the self and non-self by means of
the senses and the mind, (ii) Śruta-jñāna (Scriptural knowledge ) : .
Knowledge derived from the reading or hearing of
scriptures, (iii) Avadhi-jñāna ( Clairvoyant knowledge ) :
Knowledge of the distant time or place, (iv) Manahparyāya-jñāna (Mental knowledge ) :
Knowledge of the thoughts and feelings of others,
and
(v) Kevala-jñāna (Perfect knowledge or Omniscience) :
Full or perfect knowledge without the limitations of time and space, which is the soul's characteristic in its pure and undefiled condition.
