Jaina View of Life

Author(s): T G Kalghatgi
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur

Page 82

Critique of Knowledge
67
the Gods cannot transgress it." We see in the conception of Rta the development from the physical to the divine. It is by the force of Rta that human brains function”. Man knows by the divine force of the same immanent power which makes fire to burn and river to flow. The interpretation of the famous Rgvedic hymn of creation. "nasad asin no sad asit tadanim” and again of "kāmas tad agre samavartatadhi manaso retaḥ prathamam yad asit. Sato bandhumasati niravindahệdi pratişyā kavayo manişā” gives a description that for the first time there arose kama which had the primeval germ of manas within it. Similarly the word kştu is shown to be the antecedent of the word manas or prajñā. In Sat. Bra. 4.1.4.1. there is a statement that when a man wishes, "may I do that, may I have that." that is Kţtu, when he attains it, that is Dakşa. The same term later changed its meaning to manas and prajña."
The analysis of the Jaina theory of mind shows that there has been a conflict between the metaphysical and the psychological approaches to the problem. It is predominantly a realistic approach. The mind and its stares are analysed on the empirical level. The Jaina ideal is Mokşa, freedom of the soul from the impurities of Karma. The purity and the divinity of the soul are the basic concepts of the Jaina philosophy, and mind had to be linked with the soul and interpreted in the metaphysical terms.
The function of mind, which is an inner organ, is knowing and thinking. Sthānanga described it as samkalpa vyāpāravati. Ānuvamśika gives the citta vijñāna as equivalent of the manas: “Citta manovijñānam iti paryāyah." The Višeşāvašyakabhāşya defines manas in terms of mental processes. It is taken in the
2. Radhakrishnan (S.): Indian Philosophy. Vol. I, p. 79. 3. Saksena (S.K.): Nature of Consciousness in Hindu Philosophy, p. 16 4. Ibid., p. 17. 5. Ibid., p. 17. 6. Višeşāvas yakubhâsya 3525. Munanam và mannaye vă anena mano.
Also Abhidhānarājendro, Vol. VI, maņu, p. 75.