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Jaina View of Life
desire and volition. We have to know a thing before we feel the want of it. In order to satisfy the want, we act. Thus, as Hiriyanna says, feeling mediates between cognition and conation. Thus, the modes of consciousness have been the problem of philosophers and psychologists. There is a general agreement regarding the division of consciousness into three modes, although different philosophers have emphasized different aspects in the concrete psychosis. Buddhists have emphasized conation. In the Upanisads all the aspects have received their due prominence. The primacy of the intellect is emphasized in the Chandogya and Maitri Upanisads. In the Chandogya, again, we get a description of the primacy of the will. But this has reference to the cosmic will rather than to its psychological aspect. The Jainas emphasize the close relation between conation and feeling. The Nyaya theory describes the function of feeling as a mediating factor between cognition and
conation.
III.
78
48
Self-Consciousness: The term self-consciousness is very ambiguous. It may mean consciousness of the self, as an object given in introspection. In this sense, the self, the empirical ego, becomes both an aspect of experience and also an object of experience. Self-consciousness may mean transcendental and pure self-cosciousness. It is not an object of knowledge. It is the ultimate subject presupposed in acts of knowledge. Again, consciousness may mean the ultimate eternal consciousness, which is a metaphysical concept. It is also used in the empirical sense as consciousness which is changing.“ Some of the earlier philosophers have not made a clear distinction between the metaphysical and the psychological sense of consciousness. In the Upanisads, the atman is described as the basis and the ultimate presupposition in all knowledge. It is the absolute knower, and how can the knower itself be known.45
43. Chandog yopaniş ad VII. 5-1 Maitreya Upanisad VI, 39. 44. Saksena (S. K.): Nature of Consciousness in Hindu Philosophy, Ch. V.
45. Brhadaranyakopani şad, 2. 4. 14.
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