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Reals in the Jaina Metaphysics
the good and bad aspects of a thing under observation. He can understand the meaning of gesture made to him. He can receive instructions, follow conversations and distinguish the real from the unreal. He responds when he is called by his name. These powers refer to powers of recollection, conception and reasoning in man. These are absent in most of the sub-human animals and prove the operation in man, of a superior internal principle, which is Manas, otherwise called Antah-karaņa.
JAINA, SAMKHYA AND VEDANTA THEORIES OF MANAS
SIMILAR IN ONE RESPECT
What then is the nature of Manas according to the Jaina's? Leaving out of consideration, the Bhāva-Manas which is but an aspect or attitude of the soul, we find the Jaina philosophers describing Manas as 'Paudgalika' i.e. a mode of matter, compounded of peculiar material molecules, called the Mano-vargaņā. The Manas, however, is not dead, unconscious matter on that account. It is matter, peculiarly modified in strict consonance with soul-attitude, so much so that although it is never identical with the soul in essence, consciousness may be attributed to it by transference of epithet. In this, its last aspect, the Jaina theory of Manas comes very near to its Vedantic counterpart. On this point, there is some similarity between the Jaina theory and the Sāṁkhya theory also, inspite of the apparent antagonism between them which we have already noticed. For the Samkhya school also maintains that Manas is material in essence and is characterised by the empirical consciousness, reflected upon it from the Purușa. Thus it is that Manas is essentially and continues to be unconscious all along, according to the Naiyāyika's,-while the Jaina's, the Samkhya and the Vedanta thinkers agree that although Manas has its essential basis in unconscious matter, it acts as a conscious agent, being inspired, so to say, by the essentially conscious principle, the soul.
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