Religion and Culture of the Jains

Author(s): Jyoti Prasad Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 73

THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
59
Knowledge Jaina epistemology is closely related to, and in a way founded upon, the Jaina doctrine of karman which forms the basis of Jaina ethics and practical religion. It rests on the simple threefold conception of the knowledge', 'the knower', and 'the known' (objects of knowledge). If there is something like knowledge, there must necessarily be a knower or knowers, and the objects that are known.
Now as we have seen in the foregoing chapter, consciousness or sentiency (cetanā) is the differentia of the soul (spirit, jīva or atman) and the manifestation or functioning of consciousness that is upayoga, takes the two forms of jñāna and darśana, which may be equated with knowledge. Thus, of all the six categories of reals (i.e., jiva, pudgala, dharma, adharma, ākāśa, and kāla), which constitute the cosmos, the soul, and soul alone, can be the knower; no other substance or thing possesses the faculty of knowing. Knowledge is the soul's intrinsic, inherent, inseparable and inalienable attribute, without which no soul can exist. And, every soul possesses an infinite capacity for knowledge it can acquire infinite knowledge, say, it can even become omniscient, all-knowing and all-perceiving. If it is not so, that is no fault of the individual soul, but is that of the karmic matter which clouds, veils or obfuscates that capacity, partially, or in some cases, even almost wholly, and keeps it lying dormant or latent till the veil is removed. The more the veil is removed the greater, both in quantity and quality, is the knowledge of that particular soul, the total removal of the veil enabling it to become an omniscient being.
Knowledge does not come from outside; it is all the time in the soul itself, is its very being, waiting to be released, revealed or manifest itself through the annihilation and removal of the karmic bondage. Knowledge and the knower are, in fact, one and the same thing; they are identical. The 'known',