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10. PERECIVING - TOUCHING! PAIN, SEEING AND HEARING
0. Jain Epistemology il Sense-organs (indriya)
In the preceding cbapter, we had seen that perceptive cognitio (mati-jnūma), which is one of the five types of knowledge, is lxirn with: the help of sense-orgars. In oiher words, sense-organs are esser:tial instruments of perception. One way of classification of living organisms, according to Jain philosophy, is based on the nuinber of sense-orgars possessed by the organiss. Thus, there are five classes : One-sensed organism, tvo-sensed organisms a nd so on. Now the worldly existence of any organism in a particular class is the precise resuit of ide combination of fruitions of various sub-species of karman but they belong mainly to two species -- body-making (näma) karman and life-span-determining (āyusya) karman. The entire vegetable kingdom belongs to the class of one-sensed organismis i.e. they possess only one sense-organ -- that of touch.
Jains divide each sense-organ (indriya) into (i) (bhärendriya) senseorgan qua psychical i.e. the ablity of the soul to have various sensuous experiences and (ii) sense-organ qua physical (dravyendriya), i.e. the physical sense-organ. Thus, when it is said that a one-sensed organism possesses only the sense of touch, it is meant that the body of these organisms are equipped oniy with the instrument of touch perception (one dra, vendriya). On the other hand, pancendriya i.c. five-scused organisms would have all the five physical sense-organs. It should be remembered tbat ibe capabilities of the soul (bhāvenriya) is empirically useful only whes its counterpart dravyenuriya is available.
We have also seen in the preceding chapter that all the five classes. Even the one-sensed organisms are not bereft of mati-jñāna. This means that one-sensed organisms (e.g. plants) bave the sense-organ of touch and so are possessed of mati-jñāna – perceptual cognition --- through this.
