New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

Author(s): Mahaprajna Acharya, Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Today and Tommorrow Printers and Publishers

Page 100

92 New Dimensions in Jaina Logic
the sun it reveals the object as well as itself. Even as the revelation of the sun does not need any other revealer for its own revelation, a cognition does not need the service of another cognition for its own revelation. The acāryas like Manikyanandi, Vadidevasūri, 10 Vidyānanda' etc. have used the expression svaparavyavasāyi (determinately cognizing the self and the other) in place of svaparābhāsi (revealing the self and the other), thus doing away with the adjectives like 'badhavivarjitam' (free from contradiction) or 'avisamvādi' (non-discrepant). Acārya Hemacandra considered the element of 'self-revelation' as redundant.!? He has defined a valid organ of knowledge as the right determination of an object. He asserts that self-revelation is a common feature of both the valid and erroneous cognitions. A cognition never remains unknown in any of its part. The philosophers of ancient times, according to Hemacandra, purposely incorporated the element ‘self-revelation' in the definition simply in order to examine the epistemological doctrines that upheld the indirect revelation of cognition by means of inference (anumāna) or by a subsequent cognition arising in the next moment."
Consciousness is the nature of the soul. The homogeneous transformation (anvayi parināma) of consciousness is known as upayoga (experience), which is twofold, viz. indeterminate (anākāra) and determinate (sākāra). The indeterminate (anākāra) consciousness is formless, while the determinate (sākāra) is possessed of form. The indeterminate experience is darśana (intuition) and the determinate experience is jnana (knowledge, cognition)*. The intuition (darsuna) can be compared with the Buddhist conception of indeterminate cognition (nirvikalpa jnana). The Buddhist philosopher regards the indeterminate cognition (nirvikalpa jnana) as the perceptual organ of knowledge (pratyakşa pramāna). In the Jaina system, however, the intuition (darśana) is not considered as a category of valid organ of knowledge because it is not determinate and defirtite cognition of the object.14
* Intuition (darśana) and cognition jnana) are interpreted in two ways, viz. the traditional and the critical. The traditional exposition is as follows
In intuition (darśana) there is no such differentiation regarding the external objects as expressed in the proposition 'this is a pot and not a piece of cloth'. Nor is there any such comparison in regard to an external object-'this is a jar', and 'that is also a jar'. And so such intuition (darśana) does not comprehend an external object but is only a form of consciousness. When consciousness assumes a form, that is, assumes the form of the external object, it is called a cognition.