Jaina Theory of Knowledge

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

Page 22

JAINA THEORY OF APPREHENSION
simple qualities of matter and mind, together with the kinds of relation that subsist between them, must either not be known at all, or known in this dumb way of acquaintance without knowledge about. In minds able to speak at all there is, it is true, some knowledge about everything. Things can at least be classed, and the times of their appearance told. But in general, the less we analyse a thing, and the fewer of its relations we perceive, the less we know about it and the more our familiarity with it is of the acquaintance-type. The two kinds of knowledge are, therefore, as the human rnind practically exerts them, relative terms. That is, the same thought of a thing may be called knowledge about it in comparison with a simpler thought, or acquaintance with it in comparison with a thought of it that is more articulate and explicit still.!2
INDETERMINATE COGNITION IN INDIAN PHILOSOPHY :
The Indian school of Philosophy hold slightly different views about the nature of indeterminate cognition from the standpoint of modern psychologists. The opinions of the schools of Indian Philosophy also differ from one another with respect to the nature and objects of indeterminate knowledge.
The Buddhist holds that indeterminate knowledge does not at all apprehend the qualifications of its object, viz., generality, substantiality, quality, name, and the like, since all these qualifications are the forms of thought which is always determinate. Indeterminate knowledge is always free from