New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

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

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10 New Dimensions in Jaina Logic
sensible material substances, as well as the substances which are hidden, is called direct (pratyaksa) knowledge.24 The unmanifest mode cannot be known by sensuous knowledge, but it can be known by the direct perceptual knowledge. The subtle mode, submerged in the gross one, cannot be known by sensuous knowledge. But the direct perceptual knowledge can know it. The knowledge obtained through the sense-organs and the mind is, therefore, nonperceptual (indirect, mediate), while the knowledge obtained exclusively through the soul is direct in the true sense of the term.
Another reason for regarding the sensual knowledge as indirect (non-perceptual) is that there is always a possibility for doubt and error in such knowledge. In support of this view, Jinabhadragani avers that the sensuous and the mental knowledge is indirect (non-perceptual) because of the possibility of doubt and error in them. In the direct knowledge there is the absence of doubt, error and indeterminateness.25
The Nature of Knowledge
The consciousness of the soul is unitary and undivided. It is effulgent by nature like the sun. It has two phases-uncovered and covered. The consciousness which is fully uncovered is the unalloyed and innate knowledge. It can also be called knowledge which is free from any condition (imposed property). There is no need of effort for knowledge in the state of uncovered consciousness and hence that knowledge is inborn. Even in the covered state the consciousness is not totally covered, being necessarily uncovered to a certain extent. When the clouds which cover the sun are dense, the light is dimmer. But so much light as can distinguish the day from the night is certainly there. Knowledge is dim when the cover on consciousness is dense. The denser the cover, the dimmer the knowledge. Nevertheless, there is uncovered consciousness enough for the demarcation between soul and non-soul. Such consciousness is mutilated or conditioned (by extraneous factors).26 Knowledge is not only a conception (pratyaya) or a cognition produced by mere sensual experience, but it is the very nature of the soul. It always exists with the soul. It is neither generated at birth nor abandoned at death. The relation between knowledge and soul is not like the one between the soul and the physical body which is acquired at birth and relinquished at death. The soul is not a tabula rasa on which our experience scribbles with its fingers of sensations and self-feelings.