New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

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

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14 New Dimensions in Jaina Logic
Scriptural knowledge or verbal judgment manifested itself in two forms--(1) Syadvada or the doctrine of conditional judgment, and (2) Naya or the doctrine of standpoints. The Jaina logicians propounded the nature of ontological reality on the basis of verbal symbols through their doctrine of conditional judgment and the doctrine of standpoints. In the world of logicians the verbal symbols were resorted to and the logical systems developed on that basis. In other words there are as many alternatives of conceptual thinking as there are ways of linguistic expressions, that is, the logical conceptions are commensurate with the varieties of propositions. They are innumerable and accordingly the authoritative judgments can also be innumerable. If looked at from a deeper consideration it will follow that there are as many logically valid propositions as there are determinative ways of thinking and speaking. This also holds good in the domain of the dectrine of standpoints, as has been said-jāvaiyā vayanapahā tāvaiyā hunti nayavāyā'-there are as many varieties of nayas as there are ways of verbal expressions. In other words, the number of nayas is determined by our ways, intentions and opinions. The upshot is that the enumeration of the sources of valid knowledge, according to Jaina logic, is a matter of determination in a perspective which is relative. Dialogue
Question 1. Is it possible to have super-sensual knowledge through the scriptures? Does the person possessing super-sensory knowledge take resort to speech? Is he free from conceptual thoughts?
Answer. Yes, it is possible to know super-sensual objects through the scriptures, but the latter is not a means to supersensory cognition. The instrument of super-sensory knowledge is the intense practice of meditation. Such knowledge is not possible by means of verbal knowledge, but it is possible only through the realization of a non-conceptual state of meditation. In that state the speech, the conceptions and the sense-organs become defunct. Everything extraneous comes to an end.
Super-sensual knowledge does not arise from the scriptures, but the words of the saint who has achieved super-sensory knowledge become agama. The cessation of verbal thinking and the conceptions does not mean that the saint neither speaks nor thinks. anything. Absence of speech and absence of conceptual thinking take place at the time of the rise of the super-sensory experience,