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CONCLUSION
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perception can be analysed into four stages: (1) avagraha, the stage of sensation; (ii) ihā, the stage of associative integration; (iii) avāya, perceptual judgment; and (iv) dharanā, retention. Avagraha is a sensational stage. It is further divided into vyañjanāvagraha, which may be rendered as the stimulus condition of the sense awareness, or the threshold of awareness; and arthāvagraha, awareness, or the sensation itself. Thā involves the mental factor. It integrates the sense expressions. Avāya is clear cognition of the object involving perceptual judgment. Dharanā is retention of what has been experienced. However, sense perception is a concrete psychosis involving these processes which are combined and fused to give a coherent experience. The Jaina description of sense perception gives a scientific and coherent picture of the psychological element in perception. This can be compared, to some extent, to the structuralist view of sense perception.
Other Sources of Sense Experience
There are other sources of getting sense experience. They are: (i) dhāranā retention, which is also a condition of recollection, (ii) smrti, recollection; (iii) pratyabhijñā, recognition, which gives determinateness to sense experience, and (iv) anumāna, inference, which is an indirect source of sense experience. Dhāraṇā can be described as a mental trace or mental disposition (samskāra) by which experiences cognized in a definite form by avaya are retained. Such retention forms a condition of recall of the experience on a future occasion. Smrti is a form in which memory expresses itself. It is ideal revival of a past experience so far as it is merely reproductive. It arises from the stimulation of the mental disposition (vāsanā), which may be considered as equivalent to the saṁskāra of the Jainas. Mental dispositions are the latent conditions of memory. The emergence of mental dispositions to the level of consciousness is due to (i) the external conditions consisting of the environmental factors, and (ii) internal conditions connected with the conative urge. The Jaina description of the conditions of memory may be compared to the laws of association in psychology. Regarding the internal conditions, the Jaina description comes nearest to McDougall's view of memory. McDougall says that explicit volition, purpose or intention to remember greatly favours remembering and recollecting. In order to get clear recollection, it is necessary to remove psychic impediments like aversion to the object, fear and other painful experiences associated with it. Such a removal of psychic impediments was, in a sense, mentioned by the Jainas in terms of the removal of the veil of karma. But recollection does not give us a complete picture of memory unless recognition (pratyabhijñā), as a factor operates. The Jainas give prominence to pratyabhijñā as an important factor in experience. It is a synthetic judgment born of perception and
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