Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism

Author(s): S C Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 87

and feeling pain or pleasure. Nothing can exist independently of the forms which its existence is likely to take; and nothing can be known independently of the forms of knowledge which comprehends it. If the substances is deprived of all its forms of existence, it becomes nonexistent and the possibility of its knowledge is also destroyed. So Hume is right in holding that he does not get any impression of the self and the external world as distinct from the impression of colour, taste, knowing and feeling. Had there been any other way of apprehending the substance of the self and the external world, it would have been possible to deny them on the aforesaid ground. Colour, taste, knowing and feeling, being the forms of existence of some entities, imply the entities themselves. The self, in cognizing the external objects and other selves, cannot identify itself with them, for in that case the problem of cognition itself vanishes. It must cognize them through its own perceptions about them. The very rule of simultaneous apprehension and the available impressions of the psychical and the physical worlds go to establish the reality of the self and the external world. Besides, the cognition of the Yogācāra and the impressions and ideas of Hume are, by nature, such as imply the fact of externalization which must be accepted as a true implication. If the implication of externalization is held to be false, we fail to find reason why their other implications should be held to be true. In the words of Mallisena. "If the blue object perceived were a mere form of cognition, then it would have been perceived as I am blue and not as this is blue." For Hume and the Yogācāra neither the external world nor the self is true, hence the perception of the blue can neither be designated as 'this is blue' nor as 'I am blue'. So we are left with no form which can be assigned to the cognitions and the impressions a fact which is totally contradictory to our experience.
1. J.N. Sinha: Indian Realism, p. 61
The Soul: 83