Jaina Philosophy of Language

Author(s): Sagarmal Jain
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

Page 45

Language and Script (19) to each other. The Jaina masters have included in mati-jñāna not only sensory and mental cognition but also reflexion, thought and logic. The question here arises whether thought and reflexion are possible without language? If not, then materialisation of mati-jñāna (sensory-knowledge) consisting of avagraha (perception), ihā (speculation), apāya (perceptual judgement) and dhāraņā (retention) will not be possible because out of its four divisions, only avagraha is bereft of thought and reflection as it lacks language applications. We have to accept, therefore, that except avagraha (perception) all types of mati-jñāna follow to śruta-jñāna, because where there is language, śruta-jñāna is involved, and excluding avagraha, the apāya and dhāraņā do have language applications. Višeșāvaśyakabhāsya and Jainatarkabhāṣā, of course, have contented that avagraha (perception) itself is mati-jñāna (sensory knowledge) and its other folds being literal can not be regarded as mati-jñāna but as śruta-jñāna. However, in reply, it is said that though iha and other folds are expressible in words yet they are not of word-form, because the expressible (abhilāpya) knowledge when expressed to others through words only, it is called śruta-jñāna.
The distinction between mati-jñāna and śruta-jñāna is made on the ground of manifest language-behaviour and use of letters. As a matter of fact in mati-jñāna, use of language is involved only in an indistinct manner, and not in a distinct way. Difference between mati and śruta is based on muteness and not-muteness. It can also be said that īhā etc. are really śruta-niśrita (backed by scriptural learning) because they cannot take place without following the words heard before. It is of course correct that ihā etc. are produced only in a person who has cultivated mati-jñāna through the impressions of śruta-jñāna and hence is called śruta-niśrita, but practically they do not follow śruta-jñāna, therefore, they cannot be called Śruta-jñāni (possessed of scriptural knowledge). In thought and reflection though language is implicitly present, but utterance is totally absent there. It is on the basis of articulation and explicit symbolisation that a distinction between mati-jñāna and śruta-jñāna can be made. Thus while in īhā etc. folds of mati-jñāna there is implicit language-behaviour, in śruta-jñāna it is explicit.
Pt. Sukhlal Sanghvi in his interpretation of Tattvārtha-sūtra, distinguishing the mati-jñāna from śruta-jñāna writes that in mati-jñāna