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Reals in the Jaina Metaphysics
"Mati or Perception, Smộti or Memory, Samjñā or Conception, Çintā or Induction and Abhinibodha or Deduction are essentially one".
- Tattvārtha Sūtra, Ch. 1, 13 This knowledge is dependent on sensation and is gradually developed and evolved through the processes of Perception, Recollection, Generalisation, Induction and Ratiocination. These psychological processes may be arranged in an ascending or descending series. It would be noticed that this gradation of the psychological faculties by the Jaina school is not different from what is found in the works of the modern psychologists of the West.
The process which is operative immediately after the Darśana or Sensation and which is first in the scale of the developing knowledge is Upalabdhi or Mati-jñāna proper. This is identical with the process of Perception. The Jaina psychologists divide Mati-jñāna proper into two kinds, viz:-Indriya-nimitta i.e. that which is dependent on the sense-organs and Anindriya-nimitta i.e. that which is dependent on the mind. As Umā-Svāti says:
“That (Perception) is dependent on either the sense-organs. or the mind”.
-Ibid. 14 It seems that what Locke meant by Ideas of Sensation and Ideas of Reflexion and what modern psychologists express by knowledge obtained by Extraspection and knowledge obtained by Introspection are essentially the Indriya-nimitta Mati-jñāna and the Anindriya-nimitta Mati-jñāna respectively of the Jaina school.
The Anindriya-nimitta Mati-jñāna consists in a knowledge of the operations of one's own mind. Such knowledge, it is clear, is dependent on nothing but the introspective mind. The Indriya-nimitta Mati-jñāna, on the other hand, is dependent on the sense-organs. No doubt, the mind also is operative in the generation of the Indriya-nimitta Matijñāna. But as in addition to the operation of mind, that of the sense-organs is necessary in the genesis of such a perception it is called the Indriya-nimitta Mati-jñāna in
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