New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

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

Page 111

Organs of Knowledge 103
of them would be invalid organs on account of their being cognizant of only any one aspect of the object.
The problem of the inconsistency of the occurrence of two experiences of intuition (darśana) and cognition (jñāna) simultaneously can be solved if the former is regarded as self-cognition (svasamvedana) or internal consciousness and the latter as the cognition of the external objects. This would also make the invalidity of darśana (intuition) an irrelevant issue inasmuch as in self-cognition there is no effort for the knowledge of an external object, and consequently no question of validity or invalidity, which arises when there is any possibility of error. Such intuition (darsana) is cognizant of itself alone and so it is inarticulate (anākāra), and as such it cannot be recognised as an organ of knowledge so far as the cognition of an external object is concerned. A cognition per se does not endeavour to know or assume any form of the external object. A cognition is considered as possessed of form on account of its leing the cause of the cognition of an external object and is an organ of knowledge because it is possessed of form with reference to the external object. In such interpretation the validity of omniscience also remains intact, because the intuition and knowledge of the omniscient are concerned with diverse objects instead of being cognizant of two different aspects of the same object as endorsed by the traditional view of jñāna (cognition) and darśana (intuition). A cognition is direct so far as its nature is concerned. The division of it as direct and indirect in the logical treatises is only due to its experience of the external object. The classification of the organ of knowledge as valid or invalid is only with reference to its experience of an external object. The consistency of such hypothesis also becomes admissible if intuition (darśana) and knowledge are respectively recognised as cognizant of itself and as cognizant of the object outside. The meaning of the word darśana (intuition) is also direct cognition or cognition without any media. The self-cognition is necessarily direct and so the expression darsana (intuition) rightly conveys that connotation.
The super-sensuous perception (atindriya pratyakṣa or noindriya pratyakṣa) is of three kinds, viz. clairvoyance (avadhi jñāna), mind reading (manaḥparyaya) and omniscience. On this point there is no essential difference between the logical and epistemological methods of investigation. Clairvoyance (though a species of super-sensuous perception) can also be due to birth and so it is not