Jaina Theory of Knowledge

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

Page 60

JAINA THEORY OF COMPREHENSION
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sometimes it happens that such conditions as the observation of similar objects and the like being present recollection does not arise. All the external conditions may be there to arouse recollection and, yet, recollection does not emerge because of internal incompetency. Unless the mental make-up is efficient enough to recollect what has been experienced in the past, no emergence of recollection is possible. Mere external causes cannot give rise to internal activities. In cooperation with internal states only external conditions can produce certain mental functions. For this very reason the Jaina thinkers admit both internal and external conditions as the cause of recollection. One without the other is incapable of giving rise to it. However, when the requisite conditions such as the destruction-cumsubsidence of the obstructive veils, observation of similar objects, and the like are at work to bring the latent mental trace to maturation, the disposition produces recollection. The contents of recollection are expressed by a form of the pronoun that’, inasmuch as it refers to our past percepts. Thus, all the cognitions that point to their contents as that jar, that cloth, that ear-ring, and the like are the cases of recollection. The line that distinguished recollection from perception is that perception always refers to its content as existing in the present, whereas recollection always has reference to its content as existed in the past.
RECOGNITION :
Recognition is a synthetic judgment born of perception, i.e., direct sensory observation and recollection.