Book Title: Nyaya And Jaina Epistemology
Author(s): Kokila H Shah
Publisher: Sharadaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre

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Page 120
________________ OTHER KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE.... 103 It is the recollection of an object cognised before in the form “it is that and it is due to the stimulation of a memory impression. The soul can retain impressions and when these impressions wake up the result is recollection. The object of recollection is the object cognised before. Though it consists in the form of knowledge recalling its object as 'that' in all cases statements based on recollection do not explicitly use 'that' but it is implied. This distinguishes recollection from pratyabhijñā which consists in identification or knowledge expressed in the form which explicitly uses 'that e. g. 'that is but he'. The necessary conditions for the occurance of recollection are destruction and subsidence of obstructive veils, observations of similar objects and the like, i. e. some of the conditions of memory recognised by modern psychology such as similarity, contiguity and contrast etc. The general objection against recollection as a means of valid knowledge is that recollection has for its matter something that is not a present substance, that it is not knowledge of a datum perceived at present and, therefore, it is said, it has no objective basis. The Jaina reply to this objection is that it is true that recollection has no present substance for its matter but that does not mean that it is not a form of valid knowledge. “The reality of the object and not its actually felt presence, is the condition of validity of a cognition”. Another objection is that recollection is not a valid means of knowledge because it is knowledge of the objects which were the objects of a previous experience. Therefore, validity of recollection cannot be determined without referring to past experience; the previous experience is the real valid knowledge; recollection simply revives the

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