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Epistemology of Jainas as its chief aim.1 The Yoga is entirely devoted to the attainment of kaivalya. Gautama2 in his Nyāyasūtra enumerates sixteen categories and asserts that their knowledge would lead to the attainment of the highest purpose i.e. liberation. In the category of prameyas (object) he enumerates only those objects as are important in the attainment of apavarga. The Vaišeşikat system begins with the interpretation of dharma as the means for attainment of the worldly as well as transcendental wellbeing. Mimāṁsā,5 the strict devotee of the Vedas, does the same by explaining dharma as injunction of the Vedas. The Buddhists6 aim at the nirvāna i. e. removal of passions, which are the chains that keep the soul in bondage. The spiritual development achieved through the removal of karmic matter is the main theme of the Jaina scriptures.?
The early discussion on the Jaina theory of knowledge also is dominated with the same spirit. The path for spiritual progress, aiming at the final goal of liberation is the central tone of the Āgamas.8 Knowledge in this period is not valued on the merit of logical validity but as a means for the ethical progress. Jñana (knowledge) is one of the constituents of the path to Moksa,' and the knowledge which does not help in achieving that goal is discarded as ajñāna or mithyājñānalo (perverted knowledge). The difference between jñāna and ajñāna or mithyājñāna is not objective but subjective. It The cognition 1. Sankhyakārikā 1 2. Nyāyasūtra 1.1.1 3. Nyāyasūtra 1.1.9;
Nyāyamañjari, p. 428 4. Vaiśesikassūtra 1. 1 5. Mimāṁsāsūtra 1.1 6. Abhidharmakosa IV 127 7. Uttarādhyayana XXVIII, 36 8. Ibid. XXIX, 59 9. Ibid. XXVIII 1-3 10. Nandı, 25; Tattvārtha I 32 11. Bhagavatı 8.2.81
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