Nyaya And Jaina Epistemology

Author(s): Kokila H Shah
Publisher: Sharadaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre

Page 60

COMMON SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE....
sense perception except the sense of vision, other organs come in contact with the object. Perception arises, according to Jainas, when there is destruction-cum-subsidence of the knowledge obscuring karmas. Jainas maintain that Nyāya view that eye comes in contact with the visual object cannot be accepted because "it cannot explain the facts of our visual perception of two or more objects at one and the same moment."6 jainas refute the Nyāya view that it is impossible for the visual sense organ to do the act of visualising unless it comes in actual contact with the object. Jainas argue that act of visualizing is possible without contact. “They point to the power of mantras or mystic syllables, by the mental contemplation of which one can attract, say, a beautiful woman from any part of the universe and put her before any one."7 Hence, it is the Jaina view that visual organ produces vision without contact with its object. That is why, sometimes, we can see an object although there is some intervention between it and the eyes.
Both sensuous and non-sensuous perception is analysed into four stages, which are : 1. Avagraha — sensation 2. Thả - attention 3. Avāya - determinate perception 4. Dhāraņā – retention
1. Sensation
It is the first and primary stage of perception which is just grasping of a thing vaguely. Details are not comprehended at this stage. This may be said to correspond to the stage of indeterminate perception in Nyāya which is