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122 :: Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism
related to the physical object, not directly as common sense supposes, but indirectly by way of the observer.' This may be taken to mean that, if something is not perceived, it cannot be held to be related with its qualities-a position upheld by Berkeley. The observer comes in not to effect the relation between the things and their qualities, but to effect a knowledge of the entities known and their relations. The same author again observes that "the colour of the rose, to be sure, is a function of the observer, but it is equally surely a function also of the character of the rose.” Such a view is grounded in a confusion between an entity and its perception. The colour is certainly a function of the rose, but the function of the observer is not colour but the perception of the colour. Again the correct implication of the theory is that perception is a bipolar process being constituted partially by the observer and partially by the object perceived. It never means that perception negates the contributions made by the object or the observer. The third term finds no place in the process, but it is the same as the second term qualified by the first. The Jaina does not need a third term in the process of knowledge. No object of knowledge is required to change itself into a mental entity for its comprehension. Mind need not assimilate an object into its own consätution to have a knowledge of the object. The knowledge of the object is an affection of the soul in relation with the object. The knowing capacity totally belongs to the soul. The objects are possessed of knowability, and they simply become an occasion for the generation of knowledge. The seeing capacity resides in the soul, but it is only actualized in the presence of the object. The capacity of the soul to know objects and the knowability of the objects are the two basic conceptions upon which the Jaina theory of knowledge stands. Thus according to Jainism only the object and the observer are the terms in the process of preception, the differences in perceptions of the same object
1. Northrop: Meeting of the East and West, p. 78 2. Ibid., p. 443
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