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12
SUBDIVISIONS OF KNOWLEDGE OBSCURING (JÑĀNĀVARANIYA)
Indroductory
We have had eight classes of karmas mentioned, with a rough description of their nature or function; and four kinds of causes or impellent forces which are the means of generating the karmas.
KARMA
or
[We have already explained] knowledge obscuring karma. Certain acts and words and thoughts have the tendency to retard the faculty of knowing. In what different ways do we know? We must classify the various forms of knowledge, then we can know that those forces which obscure the growth manifestation of the different forms of knowledge, are the very karmas which have been called the first class. The nature of this first class could not be understood unless we understand the different ways in which the function of knowing manifests itself. (There are as many forms of knowledge as there are living beings, as no two persons' knowledge is alike; but still we can classify the kinds.) Forms of Knowledge
The first form of knowledge, which is the basis of all phenomena of consciousness and of all activities of mind, is the knowledge based on the senses, including the knowledge based on the activity of the mind. And this form of knowledge is called in the Jaina philosophy matijñāna, that is, sensuous knowledge plus something else. The initial stages of sensuous knowledge are knowledge; sensation is a degree of knowledge. It is not the bundle of sensations that make up knowledge, but it is the sensations in the higher form. There is a kind of
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