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NYAYA AND JAINA EPISTEMOLOGY
of soul has been criticized as leading to scepticism and incompatible with its realism.
Sources of Knowledge
Nyaya and Jainism establish the reality of external world by means of sources of knowledge. They agree in recognising three sources of valid knowledge viz. (i) perception (ii) inference (iii) testimony. In addition to these sources. Jainism recognizes other forms of knowledge also.
As against Nyāya, Jainism holds that authentic cognition is the means of knowledge and not sense-object contact. This is the point which well illustrates the distinction between Jaina and Nyaya view regarding valid knowledge. Though the attitude of both Jaina and Nyāya logicians is empirical and realistic, the peculiar Jaina view is that knowledge is inherent in soul. But because of veil of karma we may get imperfect knowledge. Perfect knowledge is possible directly when veil of karma is removed. However, empirical knowledge is possible indirectly with the help of sense-organs. In this sense, of the five kinds of knowledge recognised by Jainas, the first two, namely, sense-perception and verbal knowledge are indirect while clairvoyance, telepathy and omniscience are direct. But later on Jaina theory of knowledge was modified in line with the theories of other systems of Indian philosophy and in that sense perception was regarded as a direct means of knowledge and along with it, the other means of cognition like inference, comparison and authority were recognised.
