New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

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

Page 157

Contribution of Jainism to Indian Logic
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reasoning or logic, and (3) experiment. These are the only tools by which discovery of new truths and facts in the field of the various branches of science, viz. Metaphysics, Physics, Psychology, Botany, Biology, etc. have become possible. .It is with these instruments that humanity has been in search of truth since the times when such search was initiated.
Whatever new facts were discovered by philosophers was possible only on account of scientific observation in those days. So long as our philosophers were not averse to the method of observation, there was a genuine search of facts and truths. When logic raised pure intellect to a predominant position and reasoning (tarka) came to occupy an extra-ordinary place in thought, the method of scientific observation lost its importance in the speculations of philosophy and completely fell into oblivion. The result was that the subsequent thinkers were rather philosophical commentators than philosophers in the true sense of the term. Only those who searched out and established new facts and truths through subtle observation were genuine philosophers. Over the past millennium and a half no new discovery has been made or even attempted, but our thinkers rested on their oars, engaged in vain discussions of the discoveries of ancient philosophers, and endless mutual criticism and refutations, fighting with phantoms created by themselves. Nothing else could be expected from them for want of the development of new methods of observation of minute facts. There was, of course, one effective way of deep observation which is epitomised by what is called super-sensuous perception (atindriya jñāna) of the yogins. But this was also neglected and not properly used and developed in a scientific way.
The successful search of new knowledge and new principles by the different sciences is also, no doubt, due to the faculty of supersensuous experience illustrated by the epoch-making discoveries spontaneously made by the great scientists like Newton and Einstein. These discoveries were certainly the outcome of incessant search for truth based on the analysis of the properties of matter and mind and causal and acausal relations existing between them. It is absurd to think that a modern scientist has not played his part in developing the way of super-sensuous perception. Their approach may be different, but there is no doubt that science has provided methods and instruments to discover super-sensuous truths. The subjects that fall under super-sensuous perception are three, viz. (1) subtle, (2) concealed and (3) remote, which cannot be