Sambodhi 2005 Vol 28

Author(s): Jitendra B Shah, K M Patel
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 44

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RABINDRA KUMAR PANDA
SAMBODHI
evident and determined by themselves in the case of habituated cognition, and they are known from extraneous circumstances, viz. the knowledge of harmony or disharmony and the presence or absence of contradicting experience in the case of initial cognition.
4. Determinate and Indeterminate Perception
According to the Jaina logicians, determinate perception alone is valid, since it is determinate and certain. Indeterminate perception is invalid, since it is not possible. The Jainas, unlike other philosophers, deny the existence of indeterminate perception preceding the final stage of determinate perception as the Hindu logicians believe. They hold that an object is directly revealed with all its qualities and relations by determinate perception; and that there is no need of indeterminate sense material to which mental categories are applied to develop determinate perception. According to Jainas, objects are not only revealed by perception but their relations to one another also. There are not only experiences of objects but also the expereicnes of relations in the determinate perception.
ons are not imported into the indeterminate sense-material from within, in the form of forms and categories. They are there from the very beginning embedded in the perception of objects. The Jainas regard determinate cognition and all other forms of cognition, which represent the relations among objects as perceptual in character. According to them, the bare indeterminate perception of an object devoid of all its relations to other things and qualities is a psychological myth- a pure abstraction. Thus, according to the Jainas, determinate perception alone is valid and, indeterminate perception being a psychological abstraction is invalid. Here we find a significant difference between views of Hindu epistemologist and Jaina epistemologists.
5. Supernormal Perception
The Jainas believe in permanent self and the permanent world and also in the possibility of the self's perception independently without the help of the external sense organs and mind. They recognize five kinds of knowledge : mati, śruta, avadhi, manahparyāya and kevala. Mati is the knowledge that arises through the external sense organs and mind. Śruta is a testimony as to the reality of an entity due to the destruction or subsidence of action particles that veil the self. Avadhi is the intermediate knowledge of distant objects due to the same cause.