Jaina Theory of Knowledge

Author(s): Mohanlal Mehta
Publisher: Gujarat Vidyapith Ahmedabad

Page 17

JAINA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
This statement is correct to some extent, because 'to know a thing as belonging to a class' is the first stage of comprehension which arises after apprehension, according to some Jaina writers. They say that the cognition of a thing as belonging to a class is sensation - ‘avagraha-jnana' (a kind of comprehension)". According to them, apprehension is the primitive stage, i.e., the first stage of knowledge where we have only a general awareness of the object. This simple ‘awareness' without any reference to a class is named apprehension. In this awareness, the cognition has mere `existence' (satta matra) as its content. This stage of cognition emerges just after the contact between the subject and the object. This state of cognition is a preceding stage of sensation proper. According to these writers, sensation is divided into two stages. The first stage where we have mere awareness of an object is called apprehension, i.e., the sensation of existence. The second stage where we have knowledge of an object as belonging to a class is known as the sensation of class-character. There are, of course, some other thinkers who define apprehension as the cognition of generality, i.e., class-character. They regard ‘avagraha' as a stage of apprehension?. According to this view, we may use the term 'cognition of generality' for apprehension. However, the difference between apprehension (darsana) and comprehension (jnana) consists in the fact that in the former the details are not perceived, while in the latter the details are known. In a different language, apprehension is indeterminate, indefinite, indistinct, whereas comprehension is determinate, definite, distinct.