Book Title: Reals on the Jaina Metaphysics
Author(s): Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: Shatnidas Khetsy Charitable Trust Mumbai

Previous | Next

Page 325
________________ 310 Reals in the Jaina Metaphysics systems. The crowning merit of the Jaina psychologists is that they not only acknowledged the reality of forms of sub-human consciousness but held the psychical life of man himself as a subject of continuous and progressive development. Leaving aside the supersensuous faculties like the Avadhi, the Kevala etc. we may thus recapitulate the principles of the Jaina psychology. The lowest form of consciousness consists merely in the passive experience of agreeable or disagreeable phenomena. This form of consciousness develops in some animals into a consciousness of purposive activity. This again leads to the more complex forms. The first is sensation. Sensation, although a more advanced mode of consciousness than those just described, is still but crude sentience, consisting in the consciousness that the sense-organs are affected. Next is the process which we have called the Grasp. It is more advanced than Sensation in as much as it includes the consciousness that something outside is affecting the sense-organs. The processes of Attention and Determination work upon the matter yielded by Grasp and present the something, the object of Perception,-in its details. Next operates the process of Retention and thus the Perception of the object is completed. Recollection revives the idea of the object of Perception and Conception forms the class-ideas by comparing the idea with its similars. Induction utilises these general ideas in establishing general truths and Deduction verifies and carries further the results of Induction. Thus is developed a system of unimpeachable authoritative truths. These truths supply us with principles of Explanation and help us in arriving at exact conceptions of the things under our observation. Ordinary Explanation is simply Integration of one idea to its associated one in an off-hand manner. The process of sustained Consideration and Mediation explain every link of the Integration. Explanation is logically complete and scientific, when the object under observation is viewed from its particular aspects and the word signifying it represents its exact nature. This is the order of mental development according to the Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430