Jaina Theory of Knowledge

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

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JAINA THEORY OF APPREHENSION
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characters of its object as indistinguishable mass, and does not apprehend the general character as general and the particular as particular. It cannot be denied that indeterminate cognition apprehends both the general and individual qualities of an object. It cannot recognize them as such, since it is purely a presentative process, and as such cannot revive the past impressions.?
Vatsyayana, an ardent advocate of the Nyaya school, recognises indeterminate cognition as the apprehension of an object without its name. It is free from verbal images which constitute the nature of determinate cognition. He argues that determinate cognition has the same object as indeterminate cognition has. The differentiating factor of the two is that determinate cognition is the knowledge comprehending the name of its object revived in memory by association, whereas indeterminate cognition does not cognise the name and the like, since it is not entangled in verbal images.18 Gangesa, the founder' of the Neo-Nyaya (Navya Nyaya) system, defines indeterminate cognition as the nonrelational apprehension of an object free from all associations of name, class, and the like.19 .
Kumarila, the founder of the Bhatta school of Mimamsa, maintains that just after peripheral stimulation there arises an undefined and indeterminate cognition. It is pure and simple, just like the simple apprehension of a baby. It arises purely out of the object itself and apprehends only a particular object which is the substratum of general and individual qualities. It cannot apprehend its object as