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THE JAINA THEORY OF SENSE PERCEPTION
(darśana), becomes the first stage of sense experience. It will be indeterminate. It will be a species of jñāna. It has already been mentioned in this connection that darśana cannot be identified with the primitive and early stages of sense experience. In that case, we could not have the highest stage of darśana, like kevala darśana. Akalanka defines avagraha as a determinate cognition of the distinctive nature of the object. It comes after the intuitive apprehension which is due to the contact of the sense organs with the object.44 With the contact of the sense organs with the object, there arises 'intuition of the bare existence' of the object, sanmätra darśanam. This intuitive apprehension develops into the determinate cognition of the object. That is avagraha. According to Hemacandra avagraha is a determinate perception which follows the indeterminate intuition through the contact of the sense organs with the
object. Indeterminate intuitive experience is darśana. It does not grasp the specific characteristics of the object. This darśana transforms itself into a determinate cognition, which is avagraha.45 But this avagraha is not a mental construction,46 because it depends on the active exercise of the sense organs like the visual, and also because it cannot be corrected by discursive thought. Therefore, it is still immediate and direct experience based on the contact of the sense organs with the object. Similarly, Vidyanandi and Vädi-devasūri make avagraha determinate cognition. However, it would be difficult to make avagraha determinate cognition as coming after darśana, which is indeterminate and due to the contact of the sense organs and the object, as these logicians have described. In that case, as we have said earlier, darśana will become a mere species of jñāna and will be reduced to the level of mere sensation. The higher forms of darsana, like kevala darśana, would be meaningless because there would be no higher form of darśana. All darśana will be reduced to the sensational level. But we find that the higher forms of darśana have been accepted. It would, therefore, be more appropriate to treat darśana as a separate type of experience, in the sense of intuitive experience, and avagraha as the first stage of jñāna. It is really the sensational stage, where there is mere awareness of the existence, without the cognition of the specific features, of the object.
Sensations, as William James said, are the first things in consciousness. This does not mean that all our experience is only fusing and compounding of sensations. Our experience can be analysed into sensations, and these form the elements of our sensory experience. As Stout says, sensations are of the nature of immediate experience, like the experience of cold and warm, a specific tinge of pain, or a
44 Laghiyastraya, 5.
45 Prmanamimāmsā, I. 1, 26.
46 Ibid. Na cayam mānaso vikalpaḥ.
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