Outlines of Jainism

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

Page 62

Darsana and Jnana
BE
EFORE considering the various types of knowledge according to the Jaina tradition it is essential that we consider the two stages through which knowledge itself is acquired. If the term knowledge is considered to stand for jñāna, the preliminary step to it, the initiation into it, is darśana. The Jaina philosophers make use of the term darśana and jñāna to represent respectively the indeterminate and the determinate phases in the process of getting knowledge.
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The sense-object contact which initiates the process of knowledge first stirs consciousness and in this stage there is a mere awareness of the presence of the object. As such there is only an indefinite and indistinct idea about the object in question. The details about the object are not perceived and naturally there is no question of identifying the object as belonging to a particular class or group. In the Jaina terminology, the first stage is referred to as the Apprehension-stage (darśana) and in it cognition contains only existence (sattāmātra) as its content.
The process of analysis which is inherent in the human mind enables the conversion of mere sense-awareness into sense-perception. The vague consciousness of the object presented to the senses is replaced by a definite comprehension of the class-characteristics of it. The distinctness of the object is grasped and this way for a further expansion of the domain of knowledge.
paves the
The two stages of darśana and jñāna may be described as 'knowledge by acquiantance' and 'knowledge-about' since in the first