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The Soul and Consciousness :: 113
thinkers already quoted seem to be inclined to include conation as a very elementary stage in the cognitive process. It must be noted that 'conation is the indescribable prehension by the soul of the mere presence of objects having general and particular qualities.'! Brahmadeva also holds conation to the devoid of details,2 but it cannot be taken to mean that it prehends nothing of the objects. Whatever conation prehends must pertain to the object itself. It is a sort of readiness or inclination on the part of the soul to comprehend an object, and is not identified with the comprehension of the object. This readiness or inclination must have some object towards which the prehension is directed. This very identity of conation, when we begin to describe it, takes a tinge of knowledge. Hence it can be described by the terms like general apprehension, the consciousness of the surface, etc.; but it is always a prestage of the process of knowledge and can never be identified with knowledge. The generality which can be said to be apprehended by conation is not the ultimate generality, but the generality of a system to which the object belongs. As that effort in the form of conation has very little to do with the external object, it can be taken to be confined to the self itself. Perhaps this aspect of conation seems to have been emphasized by Virasena.
Conation and Knowledge as Attributes of the Soul
Now the situation we have reached so far makes the problem of identity of conation and knowledge fall to the ground, except only when a collective view point is meant. Conation and knowledge, being two distinct attributes, must have distinct simultaneous modes. And this interpretation is quite in agreement with the concept of simultaneous occurrence of conation and knowledge in the omniscient ones. No Jaina writer is in favour of the view that the flow
1. Nemicandra: Gommațasāra (Jivakānda), verse 483 2. Brahmadeva: Dravyasangraha-vrtti, p. 80
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