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Epistemology of Jainas
According to the Vedānta, the sense of hearing travels to the sounding objects and gives us the sensation of sound. The Nyāya, holds that sound-waves sent by the object are recei. ved into the car-passage and perceived there as sound. According to both, the Nyāya and the Vedānta, the visual sense Teaches out to the object and gives us colour-sensations. This is way the eye and ear can perceive the distance and direction of their respective objects. According to the modern science visual sensation is believed to be due to the transmission of light-waves from the object to the eye; in the systems mention. ed above, it is explained by the emanation of light-rays from the eye to the object. Ordinarily, the colour-rays are not visible, but inferred as the medium of sense-object contact in visual perception. Still we may perceive them under special circumstances, as when they emanate from the eyes of cats and other animals in a dark night.
The Mimāṁsā maintains Samprayoga as the essential condition of sense-perception. Bhavadāsa, an ancient interpretor of the Mimāṁsāsūtra, means the actual contact by samprayoga. But, Kumārila did not endorse the above view. He altogether changed the meaning of samprayoga. He asserts that sampravoga means the act of senses. He maintains that it is not essential that a sense must have physical contact with the object to be compreheneded. The presence of the object, in a place within the range of the objectivity of a particular sense, and the capability of the sense-organ to perceive the object, is sufficient for a perception. Sam prayoga is nothing but the contiguity of the sense and the object.
Though, Kumārila rejects the theory of contact as an essential condition, yet, practically accepts that all senses cog. nize the object after a real contact. Thus, he also sides with the Nyāya.
The Jaina supports the former position of Kumārila. He also holds that the physical contact with the object is not an essential condition for sense-perception. He says that it is
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