Sramana 2016 01

Author(s): Shreeprakash Pandey, Rahulkumar Singh, Omprakash Singh
Publisher: Parshvanath Vidhyashram Varanasi

Page 68

CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN
JAINISM
Prof. Dharmchand Jain
Philosophy is the root cause of origination and development of science, because philosophy gives ideas for inventions and experiments. But there is a basic difference between science and philosophy that science has made its field of experiments on matter (pudgala) only, where as philosophy has much wider field of knowledge and formless entities like soul. If we think about the concept of consciousness according to the various branches of science, then consciousness can be defined as the activity of senseorgans, mind, brain and the cells, and when consciousness is defined according to Jaina philosophy then it is an attribute of a soul, which could not be known through the empirical or materialistic instruments. Consciousness and soul The word 'consciousness' is used mainly in two meanings - 1. Alertness (awareness) and 2. Feeling of livingness (cetanā). In Jainism word ‘apramāda' is used in the sense of alertness and ‘upayoga', prāņa', 'sañjñā'for the feeling of livingness. In Jainism, a soul is considered as the ultimate source of consciousness. Consciousness is the very nature of a soul with or without body. If the soul departs from the body, sense organs and brain do not work; the body is called dead. So it is a question for the scientists that how the consciousness arises and how it vanishes? Where does it come from and where does it go? Except the Cārvāka thinkers, all the branches of Indian philosophy accept the concept of soul which is the source of consciousness. Nyāya and Vaiseșika philosophers mention soul as omnipresent, but they accept its consciousness limited to body. Vedānta philosophers propound omnipresent Brahma and living beings as its part (caitanyāmśa). Buddhist philosophers do not accept soul as eternal entity. They accept a flow of consciousness which is called vijñāna or citta.