Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

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

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196 Jain Philosophy in Historical Outline
than itself. As regards perception the Jains share with the NyåyaVaiseșikas the ideas of indeterminate and determinate perceptions. According to the Nyāya-Vaišeșika system, the material cause of the sense-organs are the five bhutas like, earth, etc. which are all physical substances. The Jains also maintain that the material causes of senseorgans is a particular kind of Pudgala.. The Jains, admitting that different qualities are perceived by different sense organs, argue that since a quality is non-distinct from the substance of which it is a quality, all the sense-organs are competent to perceive qualities as well as substances. But the Nyāya-Vaišeşikas hold that the visual sense-organ and the tactile sense-organ are alone competent to perceive substances. The mental qualities like desire, aversion, pleasure, pain. etc. and the experience of these qualities are traced in both the systems to the soul or self. The soul or self, i.e. Ātman is associated
with the atoms in the Nyāya-Vaiseșika and with Karmic-atoms (karmāņu) in Jainism.
Regarding the technique of presenting an inference, the NyāyaVaišeşikas admit the necessity of establishing a five-membered syllogism. Although the Jain logicians adopt this in practice, in conformity with their non-absolutistic standpoint they hold that the number of steps in an inference is not fixed but may be more or less. As to the aspects of the nature of a probans, the Nyāya-Vaiseșikas advocate for its five fold nature: presence in the subject of the thesis sought to be established (pakşa-sattva), presence in a homologue (sapakşa-sattva), absence from heterologues (vipakşa-vyāvstti), absence of cancellation-of-the-thesis (abādhita-vișayatva) and absence of a counterbalancing probans (asatprati-pakṣitatva). The Jain tradition maintains that a probans has but unitary nature, namely 'absence in the absence of the probandum' (avinābhāva), but it is possible to draw a conclusive inference even in the absence of some of the aforesaid aspects. The classification of probantia into types that we find in the Jain texts is mainly based upon the Vaiseșika Sūtra, 3 which mentions five types of probantia, namely, probans (1) that is an effect (kārya) of the probandum, (2) that is a cause (kāraņa) of the probandum, (3) that is a conjunction (samyoga) with the probandum, (4) that residing by inherence (samavāya) in the probandum
INS, 1, 1, 12. Sibid, 1, 1, 32. 3IX. 2, 1; cf. NV, II, 12.