Some Problems in Jaina Psychology

Author(s): T G Kalghatgi
Publisher: Karnatak University Dharwar

Page 56

THE JAINA THEORY OF UPAYOGA
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In the Aitareya Upanisad there is mention of different modes of experience. Sensation, perception and ideation are different modes of intellection. It recognizes feeling and volition as the other two forms of experience. The seers of Upanişads give a classification of seven mental functions.36 At the basis is intellection. The Chāndogyopanisad emphasizes the primacy of the will. The Buddhists also recognized such a distinction. We have perception and conception, feeling and affection, and conation or will. In the Buddhist theory, will is the most dominant aspect of conscious experience, the basal element of human life. Radhakrishnan in his Indian Philosophy suggests that vijñāna, vedanā and saṁskāra roughly correspond to knowledge, feeling and will.37 Childers in his dictionary brings the concept of conation under saṁskāra. Mrs. Rhys Davids believes that, although there is no clear distinction between conation in the psychological sense and will in the ethical sense, still in the Pithakas there is consistent discrimination between psychological importance and ethical implication,38 Professor Stout has given up old tripartite classification of mental states and reverts to the ancient bipartite analysis of mind bringing the affective and conative elements together under the name of interest. Radhakrishnan says that, if we discard the separation of cognition and make it the theoretical aspect of conation, we get to the Buddhist emphasis on conation as the central fact of mental life.
In the Nyāyavaiseșika theory also there is a description of the manifestation of the three aspects of self as knowledge, desire and volition. We have to know a thing before we feel the want of it. In order to satisfy the want, we act. Thus, as Hiriyanna says, feeling mediates between cognition and conation. Thus, the modes of consciousness have been the problem of philosophers and psychologists. There is a general agreement regarding the division of consciousness into three modes, although different philosophers have emphasized different aspects in the concrete psychosis. Buddhists have emphasized conation. In the Upanişads all the aspects have received their due prominence. The primacy of the intellect is emphasized in the Chāndogya and Maitrēya Upanisads.39 In the Chandogya, again, we get a description of the primacy of the will. But this has reference to the cosmic will rather than to its psychological aspect. The Jainas emphasize the close relation between conation and feeling. The Nyāya theory describes the function of feeling as a mediating factor between cognition and conation.
36 Ranade (R. D.): Constructive Survey of Upanişadic Philosophy--Chapter on Psychology. 37 Radhakrishnan (S.): Indian Philosophy, Vol. I, p. 400. 38 Rhys Davids (Mrs.): The Birth of Indian Paychology, p. 6. (1936). 39 Chāndogyopan işad, VII. 5:); Maitreya Upanişad VI. 39.