Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

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

Page 200

A Comparative Study 179
Jainism and Materialism
In the Süyagadal as we have already seen in the second part of this book, two materialistic theories are spoken of. According to the first theory, the body and the soul are regarded as one and the same thing. The second theory is concerned with the doctrine of five eternal elements constituting everything. The philosophical views of Pūraņa, Pakudha and Ajita, who were contemporaries of the Buddha and Mahāvīra, must have contributed to the growth of a purely materialistic philosophy which later came to be known as the Cārvāka system.
In its sophisticated stage, Jainism had to come into conflict with the Cārvāka system. It was due to the fact that in accepting nonperceptual sources of knowledge like inference and testimony, the Jain philosophers felt it necessary to justify their view by refuting the Cārvāka theory that perception is the only source of valid knowledge. 2 Thus, the Jains point out that if the possibility of obtaining correct knowledge through inference and testimony be rejected altogether, the validity of perception then also can be challenged on the ground that in many cases perception proves illusory. The agree with the Cārvākas on the point that perception reveals the reality of material substances, composed of the four kinds of elements. But they add that for the establishment of the concepts of space and time and also of motion and rest inferential knowledge is necessary. They point out that in some cases even the Cārvākas have to depend on inferential knowledge, e.g. when they say that consciousness is due to the combination of material substances. We can perceive the qualities of a fruit like its colour, shape, smell, etc. We can as well perceive internally pleasure, pain and other qualities of the soul. But we cannot perceive how the combination of material substances is generating consciousness. In establishing this absolute the Cārvākas evidently depend on inferential knowledge. Moreover, when the Cārvākas deny the existence of non-perceptible objects like life-afterdeath, they go beyond perception and infer the non-existence of the objects from the fact of their non-perception.
It is however interesting to note that this Jain criticism of the Cārvākas was directed mainly against their theory of knowledge. In other fields the Jain philosophers preferred to keep themselves silent.
111, 1. 15; 11, 1.21 ff. *PRM, II; SVDM, 20.