Outlines of Jainism

Author(s): S Gopalan
Publisher: Wiley Eastern Private Limited New Delhi

Page 55

Jaina Epistemology: An Over-view
KNOWLEDGE in general is analysable into ideas,-ideas about I things of the external world, about other men and about one's own self. The ideas about every one of the three categories mentioned above constitute knowledge only when they have all been systematized and absorbed by the 'subject', the knower. It will at once be noticed that not all ideas are of the same value and validity. This is evident from our reference to some ideas as true and some others as false. The awareness of such a distinction between true and false knowledge, what is also referred to as valid and invalid knowledge, presupposes an enquiry into the origin and validity of all knowledge. The study whose concern is a systematic reflection about knowledge, a reflection which is solely centred round knowledge itself is epistemology.
Since knowledge presupposes also a knower and the object of knowledge, while analysing how the knower knows the known, the means of knowledge requires to be analysed and understood. The means of knowledge are referred to as pramānas and the objects of knowledge are known as the prameyas in Indian epistemology. The first systematic treatment of the pramāṇas is found in Gautama's Nyāya-Sūtra which deals also with prameya. Later the study of knowledge was gradually separated from that of the objects of knowledge. This gave rise to works on pure logic and epistemology.
This tendency is first noticeable in the works of the Jaina and the Buddhist philosophers. The evidence from the Jaina tradition is found in the Bhagavati-Sūtra in which Lord Mahāvīra is referred to