Nyaya Science of Thought

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

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NYAYA.
substance of consciousness, unhindered by the knowledge-obstructing influence of matter.*
* There can be no getting away from the fact that the soul can never know anything unless it be endowed with the knowing faculty. The senses only give us impressions, photos or images of objects, but not the knower to cognize them; and it would be a miracle if they could create the knower, for they are unconscious themselves. There can be equally clearly no doubt but that the soul only perceives its own conditions or states of consciousness in knowing anything else, for very often that which it knows is very different from what is actually perceived, and in many cases what is known is never really perceived with the senses, e.g., ether which is invisible to the naked eye. The existence of a capacity to know, then, is a condition precedent to the consciousness of the soul, and it is evident that this capacity to know is not anything foreign to or acquired by the soul, but its very nature, for, as already observed, the separation of jñana (consciousness) from the jñâni (knower) is fatal to both. It is also evident that there can be no limit to the knowing capacity of the soul, for neither reason nor imagination are liable to be limited by aught but the impossible, and though the senses of each and every living being do not embrace the whole range of phenomena, still there can be no doubt but that different beings take cognizance of different things, so that what is invisible to one soul does not necessarily remain unperceived by all. Owls, for instance, perceive objects in the dark ; and it is obvious that the minute little insects which are quite invisible to us must be known at least to the members of their own fraternity, for they breed and multiply. The inference is that while the soul is the knower in its own right, its knowing capacity is obstructed, more or less, in the case of different beings, though consciousness with its special properties-individuality and knowledge-being common to all,