Jinamanjari 2002 04 No 25

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

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depends on the mutual adhyasa (transference or the imposition) of external attributes upon the atman (Self). According to him, the super imposition of the extra personal attributes on the Self can be of the body (e.g. when one says "I am fat or thin;" of the senses as in "I am dumb or one-eyed;" or of the mind such as desire, intention, doubt, determination and the like.
This beginningless adhyasa (superimposition or confusion) of mithyapratyayarupah (wrong cognition) is naisargika (natural).* It rests on mithyajnana-nimittia (false knowledge) and is brought about by avidya (nescience). As a result the individual Self in samsara (the empirical world) is influenced by mithyajnana-nimittia (wrong knowledge), adhyasa (confusion, or philosophical/transcendental) avidya and identifies himself with external objects or various psychic states. "This mutual superimposition of the Self and the non-Self, which is termed nescience, is the presupposition on which there base all practical distinction those made in ordinary life as well as those laid down by the Vedas between means of knowledge, objects of knowledge and all scriptural texts, whether they are concerned with injunctions and prohibition (of meritorious and non-meritorious actions) or with final release."S
Thus, Sankarācārya points out that in ordinary life, every individual has to operate only through his body and sense without which life itself would be impossible in the concrete world. Even the cognitive process of knowledge depends upon sense perceptions and intellectual activity that naturally presupposes the organic body. Even when the individual is looked upon as an agent carrying out the injunctions, religious and ethical, an organic body must be presupposed. Conduct as a social being in the world is therefore inextricably mixed up with bodily behaviour, without which he can neither discharges his duties either as a social being or a religious devotee.
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In this respect he is of common nature with other animals, which also behave in an identical manner in reacting to the environment. In the presence of an enemy, the animal tries to run away and escape and in the presence of friendly environment it feels happy. Thus this concrete world of natural experience, which is common to both men and animals, though philosophically supposed to be the result of nescience, is to be considered real and important from the practical point of view. In this concrete world which is real in its own way, the social distinctions based upon rank and birth hold good. That one is a Brahmin and another is a kṣatriya, one is a master and another is a
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