________________
Matter
265
rather attribute the generation of consciousness to the operation of a principle (i.e. the Manas) which is the cause of vitality also. The Nyāya school maintain also that Manas is different from matter as well. In a way, then, the Nyāya thinkers hold that the vital and the conscious phenomena cannot be reduced either to the modification of a self-existent principle of pure consciousness or to the physico-chemical forces. They are due to the intervention and operation of a different principle. This Nyāya position is somewhat similar to the theory of the neo-vitalists, who, relying on the observation of Oscar Hertwig and others that “none of the protoplasm now living has been formed in any other way than by the propagation of pre-existing protoplasm”, see in Life a reality which is essentially different from matter.
JAINA OPPOSITION TO THE NYĀYA VIEWS
The Jaina's are opposed to most of the Naiyāyika doctrines about Manas. They point out that Manas is in some respects identical with and in some respects different from the soul. Manas is identical with the Āumā in as much as the former comes into existence only when some obstacles are removed from the latter. On the other hand, Manas and Ātmā are different because the latter is found to exist even when the former ceased to exist and function. The Jaina's oppose the Naiyāyika doctrine of the eternity of the Manas: They maintain that in some sense Manas is persisting and that in some sense, it is evanescent. Its function is to judge the good and the bad aspects of a thing under observation and it ceases to exist as soon as this functioning of it is over. On the other hand, so far as its ultimate essence (which is Pudgala or matter) is concerned, it is eternal. The Jaina's differ from the Naiyāyika's in maintaining that Manas is neither one (in a body) nor atomic. The Naiyāyika's, as we have seen, held that Manas comes in contact with the soul and the sense-organs and gives rise to perceptual cognition in this way. The Jaina's point out that if Manas be a rigid atomic unity, it cannot come in contact with the soul on the one hand and at the same time with
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
