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Reals in the Faina Metaphysics
JAINA DOCTRINES AND THE THEORIES OF EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
These three modes or aspects of consciousness are essentially the same as those stages recognised by the modern psychologists, in the process of evolution of the fully developed conscious nature. The first form of consciousness consists simply in the passive feeling of the agreeable or the disagreeable; it is scarcely to be distinguished from the vitality of the lower forms of life. It is consciousness, no doubt, but of the lowest form. The second mode of consciousness is better developed and more complicated. For, whereas the first form is simply the passive consciousness of being acted on from the outside, the second consists in the awareness of the animal's own purposive activities. Such a consciousness is possible only in (more developed) animals. The last mode of consciousness is associated with knowledge and is possessed of by man and superior beings only. The Jaina view of consciousness unmistakably suggests the remarkable theories of the modern psychology of the evolutionary school, --(1) that human consciousness is developed from forms of sub-human consciousness presumed to be present in sub-human animals and (2) that life and consciousness are probably co-extensive. Kunda-kundācāryya definitely says:· "All immobile organisms (e.g. plants) have feelings (of
being acted on) only; the animals have feelings of their own purposive activity; the beings who are above the merely organic or animal nature, possess knowledge”. This theory of consciousness conclusively proves that the early Jaina thinkers clearly grasped the basic principles of the evolutionary psychology of modern times. It shows also that there was in ancient India a considerable amount of clear and sober thinking about the nature of animals, plants and beings, low in the scale of life and mentality. By attributing to them a consciousness of their own purposive activity, the Jaina theory, certainly rejects the notorious Cartesian doctrine that the sub-human animals are unconscious automata. It does more than that, in as much
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