Jaina Theory of Knowledge

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

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JAINA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
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 kind of comprehension (jnana) and as such if apprehension (darsana) were held to be nothing but sensation, it would follow that apprehension is a sort 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. Pujyapada says : “The first comprehension 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”.Ş 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 (darsana) but a kind of comprehension (jnana) that follows apprehension. The same view has been expressed by Akalanka in the Tattvartha-raja-varttika nearly in the same language and in the Laghiyastraya slightly differently. Sensation is a determinate cognition of the distinctive nature of an object following the apprehension of pure existence emerging just after the contact of a sense