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
the object in the ordinary sense of the term, while in the latter there is an uncommon or extraordinary type of contact.
The sensory knowledge was considered as indirect knowledge in the orthodox Jaina tradition. Acārya Kundakunda has logically defended the indirect character of a sensory cognition. Umāsvāti also has assigned the status of indirect cognition to sensory perception through his classification of mati and śruta as indirect cognition.
Thus there were two different traditions among the logicians regarding the nature of sensory perception as (1) direct and (2) indirect. Some Jaina philosophers, in the meantime, made an attempt at reconciling these two attitudes towards sensory perception.
It is in the Anuyogadvāra Sūtra, an early Jaina text, that sensory perception finds a mention for the first time. In the epistemological discussions of the Sthānānga Sūtra, perceptual cognition (pratyaksa) is mentioned as twofold, viz. kevala (omniscience) and no-kevala (clairvoyance and mind reading)." In the Anuyogadvāra Sūtra the perceptual cognition is divided as sensory and non-sensory perception, the former being fivefold, viz. auditory perception, visual perception, olfactory perception, gustatory perception and tactile perception; and the latter threefold, viz. clairvoyance, mind reading and omniscience."
The Nandi-Sūtra follows in this respect the tradition recorded in the Anuyogadvara-Sūtra. It is only in these two āgamas that the sensory cognition is included under the category of perceptual cognition. While the Anuyogadvāra-Sūtra can be assigned to the first century A.D., the Nandi-Sūtra belongs to the fifth century A.D. Jinabhadragani Ksamāśramana, who is the principal representative of the agamic tradition, and belongs to the seventh century A.D., has defended the non-perceptual status of mati and śruta, but at the same time he makes a novel addition. The inference
(3) perception of the features of a thing which was known previously or elsewhere as here and now presented (jñāna laksana pratyaksa). The samanya laksana pratyakşa is accomplished through the internal organ and illustrated by the knowledge of universal concomitance between smoke and fire, which according to Jaina logicians is effected by tarka (reasoning). The second kind of extraordinary perception, viz. jñāna laksana pratyakṣa is illustrated by the proposition 'this is silver', when there is no such object in front. It is a genuine (though false) perceptual judgmen:, mediated by our previous judgment about a validly observed piece of silver.