Jaina Psychology

Author(s): Mohanlal Mehta
Publisher: Sohanlal Jain Dharm Pracharak Samiti Amrutsar

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JAINA PSYCHOLOGY
Mere awareness of an object without any distinction is the proper province of sensation, according to these thinkers. This view is not capable of being defended, since from our previous discussion it is clear that comprehension (jñāna) is always determinate and distinct, whereas apprehension (darśana) is never of this character. Now, how can sensation which is indeterminate, be a category of comprehension which is always determinate? Siddhasena in his Sanmati-tarka-prakaraṇa remarks that the same cognition in its lengthy process is named two-fold. At its preliminary stage when the object is indistinctly apprehended, it is called apprehension and at its latter stage owing to the distinct awareness of the object, it is called comprehension. The primary stage of cognition, viz., sensation is nothing but apprehension, since it is indistinct and the next stage such as that of cognising the object distinctly is called comprehension. But this is not convincing, since sensation is recognised as a category of comprehension, (jñāna) and as such if apprehension (darśana) were held to be nothing but sensation, it would follow that apprehension is a category of comprehension which is a contradiction.
Now, let us turn our attention towards the view of those logicians who define sensation in a different way. Pujyapāda says: "The first cognition arising immediately after the contact of a sense-organ and its object, is sensation. On the contact of the object and the sense-organ, there occurs apprehension. The cognition of the object there-after is sensation. As for example, the comprehension 'this is white colour' by the visual organ is sensation. This definition obviously distinguishes apprehension from sensation. Sensation follows apprehension and apprehension necessarily precedes sensation. In other words, the differentiating factor of the two is that apprehension necessarily precedes sensation but sensation never precedes apprehension. Sensation is not apprehension (darśana) but a category of comprehension (jñāna) that follows apprehen
1 Damsanamoggahamettam........
Sanmati-tarka-prakarana, IT, 21. 9. Visayavisayisannipätasamanantaramádyagrahanamavagrahah.
Visayavişayisannipäte sati darśanam bhavati, tadanantaramarthasya grahanamavagurahah. Yathā cakşusă śuklari rūpamiti grahanamavagrahah. Sarvărtha-siddhi, I, 15.