Samayasara

Author(s): Kundkundacharya, Jethalal S Zaveri
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

Page 25

Introduction/Premble to Chapters I & II
Samayasāra transcendental fact. Again the term body, in Jain philosophy, implies not one but two different things, besides the gross or physical body, that we actually perceive, there is a subtle microbody-kārmaṇa sarīra.' This body is composed of a class of matter (varganā) which is different from the class of matter of the physical body. This class of matter is called kārmaṇa varganā and it is the subtlemost class. The subtle body is an inalienable appendage of worldly life and is transcended only in the emancipated state.
5. NAYA-The Technique for getting an Insight into the Nature of Reality
All real and concrete things are extremely complex entities because they possess innumerable attributes and relations. What enters into the course of our direct perceptions is but a tiny fragment of the full reality. And even this imperfect and fragmental perception seems to be implicitly complex and always to contain a plurality of aspects. A completely adequâte apprehension of the whole of reality must be all-embracing and must include all data without contradiction or discrepancy. It would, thus, experience the whole of real existence directly by a completed insight. The ability for such a pure and perfect apprehension is called omniscience (kevalajñāna) and is possessed by a kevalī alone. Our own ability for apprehension falls far short of such an ideal. Our apprehension, therefore, always has the character of being piecemeal and fragmentary. Whereas in the perfect apprehension, every fact would be directly seen as linked with every other, in our piecemeal one, facts would appear to be in isolation and independence of one another, as bare casual collocations. Hence our descriptions and predications would be relative and circumscribed because they emerge from a limited and partial nature of the intellect. What, then, should be our approach for comprehending the true nature of reality? Our ideal should, then, be to apprehend the reality from one particular aspect at a time. Such an apprehension is an opinion or way of approach for any one aspect and is called NAYA by the Jains. Since every aspect of a reality reveals its nature in its own way, naya is thus a technique for getting insight into the nature of reality. The technique of naya plays an important part in the law of 1. Actually, there is one more subtle body which is called teijas sarīra-luminous or electric body.
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