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The Soul and Consciousness :: 103
presence of objects having general and particular qualities is conation (darśana)."1 Thus the general characteristics of the objects are the subject-matter of conation, and the particular ones are, of knowledge. This view though most popular in Jainism, proves to be inadequate in two ways. Firstly when objects are universal-cum-particular, how does knowledge grasp only one part of reality and fails to prehend the other. This will also mean that knowledge ever remains ignorant of the universals in the objects. Secondly as the universals and the particulars are only relatively true, there is nothing like absolute universal or absolute particular; and the subject-matter of conation and knowledge cannot be distinctively defined. It is the same entity which in one reference-system is held to be a particular, and, in another, becomes a universal. We may now think of the ultimate generality of the objects as the subject matter of conation. If this generality is the subject-matter of conation, then one conation cannot be distinguished from another. At the same time a conation cannot be without its subject-matter. Jainism holds four types of conation, everyone being different from the others. If all types of conation arise from the same ultimate generality and in themselves have no details, their mutual distinction becomes a dogmatic assumption. In other words it does not seem consistent to hold that conation grasps simply the generality of the objects and knowledge, its particularity. Brahmadeva observes that conation prehends generality and knowledge prehends particularity is not a tenable view, because reality is universal-cumparticular.3 Virasena modifies the view as the experiencing of the self is conation, and the comprehension of the external objects is knowledge. He himself criticizes that if knowledge is admitted as having two capacities to apprehend self and
1. Nemicandra: Gommatasāra (Jivakānda), verse 483 2. Nemicandra: Dravyasangraha, verse 4 3. Brahmadeva: Dravyasargraha-vrtti, p. 80 4. Dhavala (Com. on Satkhandāgama by Virasena)
Sat-prarūpanā, part I, Vol. I, p. 383
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