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JAINA PSYCHOLOGY
The Buddhists recognize three main kinds of feeling. Feeling, according to them, is a psychic factor that is essentially present in all consciousness. It is primarily of three kinds, viz., pleasantness (sukha), unpleasantness (duḥkha), and indifference (upekṣā). The consciousness of the eye, the ear, the nose, and the tongue is accompanied by indifference. The consciousness of touch, being more effective, is accompanied by either pleasantness or unpleasantness. Our consciousness may be accompanied by a feeling of delight (saumanasya) if the object is agreeable, and by a feeling of antipathy (daurmanasya) if the object is disagreeable. Thus, there are altogether five types of feeling: pleasantness, unpleasantness, delight, antipathy, and iridifference. As regards the nature of pleasantness and unpleasantness, only one type of consciousness is accompanied by pleasantness, and that is the touch-consciousness as the resultant of previous good karmas; similarly, there is only one type of consciousness which is accompanied by unpleasantness, and that is the touch-consciousness as the resultant of previous bad karmas. 1 The Jaina thinkers, unlike the Buddhists, did not recognise indifference as a category of sense-feeling. They categorically divided all feelings into two types: it is either pleasant or unpleasant. There is no third type which is neither pleasant nor unpleasant. Are there any states of feeling which are neither pleasurable nor painful? It is a debatable question. In modern psychology also the same controversy stands unresolved. The advocates of neutral states argue that when we go on increasing a stimulus there is a gradual change from pleasurable to painful sensation. This being the fact, theoretically, there must be a neutral centre between the extremes of the highest pleasure and the strongest pain. This position is not accepted by those who are not prepared to believe in the so-called neutral states. They advance the following counter arguments: (1) The view proclaiming neutral states of feeling overlooks the law of relativity, according to which the hypothetical centre ought to appear as pain when reached from the side of pleasure and as pleasure when reached from that of pain, and never as neutral. (2) The evidence acquired through experiments is also against it. If the warmth of a surface in contact with the palm of the hand is gradually increased, then before its agreeableness passes into
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1 Abhidhamma Philosophy, pp. III-3.
