New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

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

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152 New Dimensions in Jaina Logic
ted study and research of the science of yoga, karma and psychology along with logic. Without this co-ordinated study and research the approach of minute observation cannot flourish or be successful. The yogic experience is an important part of philosophy. It is not cultivated exclusively for physical health and elimination of mental tension, but it has a great part to play in illuminating the minute strata of our consciousness. It is a successful medium of communication with subtle truths. Maharsi Caraka, it is said, could know the properties of medicinal herbs, simply by a sympathetic association with them without the help of microscope or other such subtle instruments to observe them. He used to sit down in deep meditation and the properties of medicinal herbs reflected themselves in the mirror of his pure consciousness. In ancient Jaina literature also there are recorded many such properties of vegetation as were intuited in special state of trance.
For the right growth of the method of minute observation the study of the science of karman is also very valuable. Behind our physical body there is a karmic body which is finer than the former and its subtle functions manifest themselves in the reactions of the physical body. By developing the power of observing the function of the kārmic body we can succeed to expose the reactions manifested in the physical body and also determine the nature of the causal relationship between the two (viz. the karmic body and its reactions manifested in the physical body).
By a careful study of the different faculties of the mind and different phases of the consciousness behind them as well as the external data conditioning the consciousness, it is possible to add new dimensions to the power of observation.
It is not sufficient for a philosopher to be a mere logician to be successful in such co-ordinated study and aptitude for discovering new truths and facts. A philosopher has to cultivate the faculty of intuition by means of yoga. He has to achieve purification of mind by freeing it from perversions, angularities and idols. Many among the scientists are also saints and live an astute life as pure as that of an ascetic. In the minds, engaged in the search after truth, pollution and blemishes cannot subsist, and in case they subsist, obstructions are bound to present themselves to obstruct the quest of truth. While the scientific observation is the pre-requisite for the search after truth, the purity and one-pointedness of mind is the pre-condiion of that search. In the scientific atmosphere of the modern times