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that the Indriya's are Paudgalika or material, they take care in mentioning that the material basis of the senseorgans is not ordinary dead and unconscious matter".
JAINA AND NYĀYA VIEWS OF THE INDRIYA
The Jaina theory of the sense-organs is thus slightly different from the Nyāya theory, according to which, the sense-organs are rigidly material and unconscious instruments in the hands of the soul. The Jaina's maintain that being impregnated by the soul, the senses become conscious and feel pleasure and pain--just as a ball of iron being well burnt appears as red like fire itself. 'निष्टप्रायः पिण्डवदिन्द्रियपरिणामात् इन्द्रिय मनश्चेतनास्वाभाव्यात् इन्द्रियाण्येव वेदनावगम कुर्वन्ति।' The Nyāya theory, on the contrary, is that it is not the function of the senses to feel pleasure or pain, that it is the Manas which operates in the matter of feeling pleasure or pain; but that both the sense-organs as well as the Manas are unconscious and that it is the soul which has the sensuous knowledge and the pleasurable or the painful feelings; that the Indriya's in the former case and the Manas in the latter are the unconscious Karaṇa's or organs of the sensing and the feeling soul.
How SENSATIONS ARE GENERATED
A question of some present-day interest seems to have been much debated in ancient India, regarding the manner in which the sense-organs help the generation of the sensuous knowledge. The philosopher of ancient Greece held that as only the like could come in contact with the like, it was impossible for the soul which was subtle and conscious to come in contact with a sensuous object which was
I The Kārmic matter, coming in contact with or rather being impregnated by the conscious principle itself, become conscious, atenuT UTTHIT रजितत्वात् कर्मणः स्याच्चचैतन्यम् as the author of the Raja-Vartika points out.
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