Outlines of Jainism

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

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JAINISM
there is only the contact of the object with the mind perceiving it and in the second, there is a mental comprehension of the details about the quality and class of the object. The passage from darśana to jñāna may be referred to as a passage from the raw, unverbalized stage in acquiring knowledge to a stage in which language can be employed to clearly indicate the various elements that have all been synthesized to form the core of knowledge. This distinction is generally agreed to by all the Jaina philosophers, though emphasis on the one or the other aspects of the dichotomy make for different expressions of the same fundamental position. This will be evident when we turn to specific philosophers.
Virasena defines jñāna as the comprehension of both the generic and specific qualities of the external objects. When the self turns inwards and introspects it ‘knows' itself and this is referred to as darśana by him. Darsana is hence considered antarmukha (turned inside, introvert) while jñāna is described as bahirmukha (turned outside, extrovert). It is evident, he does not accept the simple distinction in terms of apprehension of generic qualities and comprehension of specific characteristics. The reason he gives is that it is logically not possible to conceive of the general without considering the particular and vice versa. Particularity without generality is a figment and generality without particularity is an impossibility, according to him.
In keeping with this logical stand he refers to objects of knowledge as 'complexes. Even the simplest case of perception denotes the comprehension of the complex of the universal and particular characteristics presented to the senses by the object in question. Though the object as a synthesis of the generic and specific qualities is presented to the subject, i. e., the perceiving mind, in the first stage of darśana, there is only an introspective understanding of the object. This facilitates analysis and synthesis and, in the second stage of jñāna there is a comprehension of the selfsame objects as belonging to the external world, occupying particular places, as having existence in a specific point of time, as belonging to a particular class and as sharing certain qualities in common with the other members of the class, etc. In the comprehension stage, therefore there is the outward turning of the mind to 'get at' and understand reality.
1 See his commentary Dhavala on Şarkhandägama of Puşpadanta, I. 1.4