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JAINA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
RECOLLECTION:
Recollection is the cognition that has the stimulus of a latent mental trace for its condition. It refers to its content by a form of the pronoun 'that'.48 The latent mental trace is nothing but the disposition retained by our past experience. Its emegrence to the surface of consciousness constitutes the stimulation of recollection. The emergence of recollection is necessarily conditioned by this sort of stimulation. Unless and until this type of stimulation is present, recollection cannot emerge. But how does the latent mental impression serve as the stimulus for the emergence of recollection? It requires another stimulus. The disposition of past percepts, though it may have continued for a certain length of time, does not operate as the cause of recollection unless it is awakened by another stimulus. The stimulus to excite it is admitted to be two-fold by the Jaina. First of all, the person reproducing his past experience must be competent to do so. Now, what is this competency? It is nothing but the destruction-cumsubsidence of the obscuring karmic veils. This condition is common to every type of cognition. Even the highest type of knowledge, viz., omniscience cannot emerge unless complete destruction of the knowledge-obscuring veils takes place. For the emergence of recollection also this condition is necessary. The second factor is nothing but the external conditions that bring the disposition to maturation. It includes the observation of similar objects and the like. Now, mere observation of similar objects and such other conditions are not enough to arouse recollection, since
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