New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

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

Page 23

Jaina Logic of Agama Period
15
and not at the time of its practical application.
Question 2. Does the cognitum depend upon the cognition?
Answer. The statement that the determination of the cognitum depends on the cognition does not mean that the existence of the cognitum is dependent on the cognition. But both the cognitum and cognition are independent. Both have their own individual existence. The function of cognition is not to produce cognitum, but only to explain, analyse and classify it. Such determinations are possible only by means of knowledge. There is, therefore, no difficulty in this sense to regard the determination of the cognitum dependent upon the cognition. There is water and other things which are existent by themselves since time immemorial. But the examination of the nature of water is possible through the instruments of knowledge. What is the nature of water? Is it a fundamental substance or a compound of elements? Such determination is possible only through valid instruments of knowledge. In matters of scientific determination the instruments of knowledge occupy the primary place, while the cognitum has only a secondary importance.
Question 3. It is our commonplace experience that knowledge is constituted by conceptions, in the form of a judgment. How can the non-conceptual condition of the mind, being a state of meditation, have any kind of judgment?
Answer. We are possessed of only two means of conceptual thinking-mind and speech. While we are engaged in conceptual thinking, our consciousness, which is submerged in the fathomless deep, gets little scope for expression. The uncovering of such consciousness needs the control of the restiveness of respiration, body, speech and mind. This is the state of non-conceptual existence. This again is the process of removing the veil accumulated over con: sciousness. With the removal of the veil, consciousness which is innate manifests itself. Omniscience, like the sun, is a mass of light. The intervention of clouds effects a change in the intensity of light. The clearness or the dimness of the consciousness is dependent upon the intensity or tenuousness of the veil, even as those of light are dependent on the intensity of thinness of the clouds. The veil on the consciousness is made thin by means of the experience of nonconceptual meditation. The manifestation of knowledge becomes, more and more vivid as the veil gets thinner and thinner. Sri Jayācārya has explained the divisions of knowledge consequent upon its lucidity or otherwise by an example of quadrangular