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General Conceplion of Knowledge
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falsehood. A cognition is false when the samething appears in the context other than its own. In the case of the conch-shell appearing as silver, the silver exists in relation to its own substantiality of silverness. It does not exist in relation to shelloess as it appears in the present case. Similarly, it exists in relation to its own space, i. e, the shop where it is sold, and not in relation to the space where it is appearing. The same is the case with time and state also. The Jaina does not hold that the silver is purely mental as the Vedānta or Yogācāra does. He says the silver and shell both exist in relation to their contexts. A cognition is false when the context is disordered.
False knowledge is that which represents things in relation in which they do not exist. When a rope, in a badly lighted place, gives rise to the illusion of a snake, the illusion consists in taking the rope to be a snake i, e. perceiving the snake where it does not exist. Snakes exist and ropes also exist, there is no untruth in that. The error, thus, consists in this, the snake is perceived where the rope exists. The perception of a snake under relations and environments in which it is not then existing, is, what is meant by error here. What was at first perceived as a snake was later on contradicted and thus, found false. Falsehood, therefore, consists in the misrepresentation of objective facts in experience. Illusion consists in attributing such spatial, temporal or other kinds of relations to the objects of our judgement as do not actually exist, but the objects themselves actually exist in other relations. When I mistake the rope for a snake, the snake actually exists, though its relation with 'bis' as 'this is a snake' does not exist, for the snake is not the rope. This illusion is thus, called Sadasatkhyāti or misrelating the existents.
The truth and falsehood of the context are ascertained by the subsequent correspondance or contradiction. The criterion of falsity is not subjectivity of the appearance, but its contradiction. If a judgement is contradicted by another judgement of unquestionable truth, the former is to be rejected as untrue.
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