New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

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

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New Dimensions in Jaina Logic
objects as are subject to rational thought.
According to Acarya Samantabhadra, if a speaker lacks established authority, he must expound his views through observation and inference, and such views are said to be proved by logic. If the speaker enjoys unimpeachable authority, the thesis propounded in his words is called a proposition proved by agama. 12
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Verification of Knowledge
The second important achievement of Jaina logic of the philosophical period is the exposition of knowledge as an instrument of valid cognition. The doctrine of valid knowlege as propounded by Aryarakṣita in his Anuyogadvāra Sūtra could not find a respectable position in Jaina logic on account of its being based on the Nyaya school of thought. Whereas the non-Jaina philosophers were engaged in discussions on epistemological problems, the Jaina philosophers kept themselves engaged in their old theory of knowledge. At the time when all other philosophers were engaged in the development of their respective epistemological theories in an age of philosophical speculations, reinforced by logical thinking, the question of developing an epistemological doctrine of their own, based on their synthetic attitude, presented itself before the Jaina thinkers also. This problem was tackled for the first time by Väcaka Umasvati, who took a synthetic view of the old Jaina doctrine of knowledge and the new science of epistemology. This served as a bridge between the agamic theory of knowledge and the logical epistemology. Siddhasena and Akalanka established an independent science of epistemology. The synthesis proposed by Umäsvāti has found vent in the Tattvärtha Sutra (1/912) which may be rendered as follows:
1. Knowledge is fivefold-sensory, scriptural, clairvoyance, mind reading and omniscience.
They fall under two categories of valid knowledge.
(Of the above five) the first two are 'non-perceptual' (indirect, mediate).
2.
3.
4.
The rest are 'perceptual' (direct, immediate). 13
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In the above epistemological doctrine of Umäsvāti, the agamic tradition of regarding the first two kinds of knowledge as 'non-perceptual', and the remaining three as 'perceptual' has been well preserved. The only difference that has been introduced in this classification consists in substituting the terms pratyakṣa and paroksa pramāṇa for pratyakşa and parokṣa jñāna.