Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

Author(s): Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

Page 194

A Comparative Study 173 momentariness the Jains hold that, if every thing is taken to be momentary, it will be impossible to explain memory, recognition, the immediate feeling of personal identity, etc. Accordingly the concept of liberation will not be able to stand in the absence of any permanent soul to be liberated. If everything be momentary no moral life would be possible then, since it is impossible for a momentary person, to make any attempt for attaining any end. The consequences of one's own action will have then no meaning. Momentariness cannot explain the constitution of any individual series, because without something permanent behind the changing modes (paryāyas), the changing states cannot be held together to form a continuity in the individual. The doctrine of momentariness cannot also be proved by perception or inference. These valid sources of knowledge do not reveal the existence of anything in the world in which there is only change and no element of continuity.1
So far as the theory of knowledge is concerned, the Jains do not contribute to the Buddhist view that all knowledge by perception of external objects is in the first instance indefinite and indeterminate. The main difference of the Jains from the Buddhists in the question of perception lies in this that, according to the Jains, perception reveals the external objects just as they are with most of their diverse characteristics of colour, form, etc. Objects are not mere forms of knowledge, as the Vijñānavādin Buddhists think, but are actually existing. Ignorance like a veil covers the self, and this veil is removed by perception which is determinate. The Jains, contrary to the Buddhists, deny the existence of any indeterminate (nirvikalpa) stage preceding to the determinate (svavikalpa) stage of perception. The Buddhists on the other hand regard that the first stage consisting of the presentation of indeterminate sense materials is the only valid part of perception and that the determinate stage is the result of the application of mental categories like imagination, memory, etc., not truly revealing the presentative part.a
The Jains reject the Buddhist view that reality consists in causal efficiency, i.e., an object is real if it is capable of causing any effect. The Jains reject this approach because according to it, even an illusory snake must be called real as it can cause effects like fear, etc. In fact production of effect is with the Buddhists, the only definition
1Gunaratna or SDSC, 52. *PKM, 8-11.