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Samayasara
Chapter - 10
It can be seen from the above that there is remarkable unanimity between the scientific version of the process of perception and the Jain views regarding sensuous cognition. The significant factor emphasized in the above verses is that the mere presence of the sense, stimuli and their coming into contact with the respective sense-organs is not effective enough to produce the psychic reaction in the consciousness i.e., perceptual cognition. The fundamental reason why a particular sense-stimulus is successful of becoming perception and producing the corresponding psychic reaction of pleasure or pain is because of the selective attention of the individual which itself is the result of his own interest in the perceived object. Stated differently, it is this interest in the particular physical object towards which the selective attention of the perceiver is directed that is mainly responsible for that particular perception. Whatever interests him, whether it is sound or sight or any other sense-stimulus, will be perceived by him and others will pass away unnoticed.
Thus, the causal condition of the psychic fact of perception is the perceiver's own interest, i.e., the perceiver himself and not the perceived object. The perception brought about by the selective attention of the perceiver, is followed by the hedonic reaction of pleasure of pain in the consciousness of the perceiver. And again the intensity of the pleasure or pain accompanying the psychic fact of perception vary from individual to individual, depending upon the attitude of each, though the intensity of the sense-stimuli may be identical in each case. And this is the very point that the author wants to emphasize.
The sense-stimuli pertaining to sound, sight, smell, taste and touch, proceeding from the external environment, are entirely physical in nature and hence cannot be directly responsible for the psychic modification, both perceptual and hedonic, produced in the individual soul. Both these psychic modification are entirely determined by the psychological attitude of the soul. Thus, to hold the physical existence and it characteristic qualities to be responsible for the hedonic reaction of the soul is mere ignorance of the philosophical as well as scientific truths. Addressing an unenlightened person who is ignorant of the total inability of the sense-stimuli to produce perception and the hedonic reaction, the author exhorts him to refrain from being angry and unhappy.
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