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Knowledge In Jainism: An Overview
sūtra (28.11) a soul bears the following characteristics:
nāņam ca damsanam ceva carittam ca tavo tahā.
vīriyam uvaogo ya, eyam jīvassa lakkhaṇam.
"A soul has characteristics like- knowledge, intuition (darśana), conduct (caritra), austerity (tapa), enthusiausm (vīrya) and consciousness (upayoga)".
Thus Jaina propound some more characteristics of a soul than Vedāntins accept, but these two philosophies agree on the point that knowledge is an essential characteristic of a soul.
Jaina philosopher Umāsvāti propounds 'Upayoga' (consciousness) as the main characteristic of a soul in his renowned work Tattvārthasūtra (2.8). Upayoga is of two kinds- (i) Jñāna (articulate cognition) and (ii) Darśana (inarticulate cognition). These two are the categories of cognition. Jñana is an articulate cognition (Sākāropayoga) and Darśana is an in-articulate cognition (Anākāropayoga). Darśana and Jñāna have an essential order. Darśana or anākāropayoga occurs first and then after Jñana or sākāropayoga takes place.
The Jaina conception of knowledge has its most significant place in the sphere of Indian philosophy. According to Jaina philosophy no one soul can exist without knowledge. All the souls of the world including the organisms like tree, fire, water etc. having only one sense of touch, also have the characteristic of knowledge. Even liberated souls do have knowledge. They have complete knowledge which is called kevalajñāna and the worldly souls have atleast two types of knowledge namely matijñāna and srutajñāna. Here, one thing is to be clarified that knowledge in Jainism is accepted either as
