Outlines of Jainism

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

Page 76

SRUTA-JNANA
67 undeveloped mind (instinctive type) and the perverted mind (believing in false scriptures).
Śruta-jnāna is considered to be superior to mati-jñāna since the latter deals with the present alone, that of the objects existing at the time of sensual and mental comprehension whereas the former is concerned with the past, present and the future. In this sense the scriptures contain wisdom which is eternally true. Hence also "Šruta-jñāna may be said to embody the highest and the most advanced knowledge arrived at by the most perfect form of matijñāna. It is based on mati-jñāna and consists in truths, discovered, developed and revealed by the most perfect of the rational souls. It is a system of scriptural truths, the holiness of which is unimpeccable. Śruta-jñāna is thus authoritative knowledge, the validity of which is unchallengeable.”
The significance of śruta as stated above becomes clear from Kunda Kundācārya's division of it into four classes, viz., labdhi or Integration, bhāvana or Consideration, upayoga or Understanding and naya or Interpretation.10 Rather than considering these as four classes of śruta-jñāna, as Bhattacharya suggests, "it is far more reasonable to look upon these processes as four steps to the progressive explanation of a phenomenon than as so many independent and mutually exclusive kinds of scriptural knowledge.”'ll
If the utility of śruta-jñāna is to be fully realized and if it consists in enabling man to apply the accumulated mass of knowledge to interpret and understand the phenomena around him, it is understandable how every one of the four steps represents the progressive stages of the interpretative ability he gets.
Labdhi stands for the stage of explanation which needs reference to a phenomenon with which the one under consideration is associated. If the two phenomena are named X and Y, since these two are known to be associated with each other, the nature of Y, the new phenomenon can easily be determined by dwelling on the nature of X.
Bhāvana is the stage of reconsidering the nature of the familiar phenomenon (X) so that the new phenomenon (Y) which is
9 H. S. Bhattacharya, Reals in the Jaina Metaphysics (Bombay: The Seth Santi Das Khetsy Charitable Trust, 1966), pp. 300-301
10 Pañcâstikāya, samayasāra, 43 11 op. cit., p. 301