New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

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

Page 25

Jaina Logic of Agama Period
17
Mimāmsaka system a human being cannot be possessed of supersensory knowledge of the omniscient. The Nyāya and Vaiseşika systems also consider human knowledge as subject to revelation by Divine Knowledge. According to Jainism, a human being is capable. of being possessed of super-sensory knowledge, i.e., omniscience.
Neither the immaterial object nor the super-sensory knowledge falls in the domain of logic. The basis of logic is necessary concomitance and the basis of necessary concomitance is sensual knowledge combined with intellectual thinking.
We believe in the words of the persons who have achieved super-sensory knowledge. Such knowledge is not accessible to any. one of us. Both of us accept its possibility on the basis of the assertion of the saints. The person who has practised meditation arrives at the truth that super-sensory knowledge is capable of being realised. The preliminary form of super-sensory knowledge is the rise of wisdom (prajna). In the terminology of science of meditation, it is called extra-sensory perception (E.S.P.) (prātibha-jñāna). Such potentiality exists in each of us. We feel such capacity on many an occasion. Sometimes it suddenly occurs to the mind-My friend will come. We open the door and find the friend. There is an experience like-My brother will come tomorrow, and in fact the brother comes the next day. We very scarcely exercise our potentiality of extra-sensory perception and this is the reason why we are unfamiliar with it. The animal-world exercises this capacity more than we do. According to the zoologists many animals and birds can know in advance about the tornado, earthquake, volcanic eruption and such other natural calamities, and go to place of safety. The human beings depend more on their ordinary sense-organs and as a result their power of super-sensual knowledge is reduced to the minimum.
. Knowledge is of two categories-(i) independent of the instruction from others. (ii) dependent on such instructions. The recollection of previous births and extra-sensory perceptions are independent of any instructions. They are, therefore, considered as inborn. There is scope for doubt in the knowledge which is dependent upon instructions, but how can there be a doubt for the person who is himself seeing his previous births or knowing a truth through an extra-sensory perception. Lord Mahavira revealed the process leading to the recollection of previous births. An aspirant could attain such knowledge through that process and consequently