________________
[CH.
1
attitude is right knowledge is right. If the attitude is wrong knowledge is wrong. A person of perverted attitude (mithyadṛṣṭi) cannot possess right knowledge. His knowledge is wrong knowledge (ajñāna). Non-discrimination between the truth and the non-truth, perverted understanding leading to rebirths, and the absence of self-control which is the consummation of knowledge account for the wrongness of knowledge. Knowledge is inherent in the soul. It does not shine because there is karmic matter to veil it. The knowledge is perfect when this veil is totally removed. It is imperfect when there is only partial removal and subsidence of karmic matter. Absence of knowledge is unnatural to soul even as darkness is foreign to the sun. It is the clouds of the karmic matter that obfuscate the innate knowledge of the soul. Knowledge can be born, or rather emerge, with or without the help of the sense-organs. Of the five classes of knowledge, the mati (sensuous) and the śruta (scriptural) are born with the help of the sense-organs. The avadhi (visual intuition), the manaḥparyāya (intuition of mental modes) and the kevala (pure and perfect knowledge) are independent of them. The sense-organs, however, are only external instruments, the different states of the soul being the internal, or rather spiritual, counterparts of them. This conception of knowledge inspired the later epistemological enquiries of the Jaina logicians. When the problem of pramāṇa (valid knowledge) presented itself before the Jaina thinkers, the term 'jñāna' (knowledge) was replaced by the word 'pramāṇa' (valid knowledge). The fundamental basis of the epistemological position of the Jaina logicians can be adequately expressed by the equation pramāna samyag-jñāna (right knowledge). Mati (sensuous) and śruta (scriptural) knowledge were put under parokṣa (indirect or mediate cognition), and the other three-avadhi (visual intuition), manaḥparyaya (intuition of mental modes) and kevala (perfect knowledge) were classified under pratyakṣa (direct or immediate intuition)." This was but natural. The knowledge is pratyakṣa (direct) or paroksa (indirect) according as it is born without or with the help of an external instrument different from the self. But in order to bring their theory of knowledge in line with the theories of other systems of thought, the later Jaina thinkers accorded the status of pratyakṣa (direct knowledge) to the knowledge produced by the sense-organs also. Jinabhadra designates as samvyavahara-pratyakṣa (empirically direct and immediate) the knowledge produced by the sense-organs and the mind. This gradual reorientation was due to
1 Cf. ViBh, 115:
28
EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE AGAMAS
Jain Education International
sadasad-avisesanão bhavaheu-jadicchiovalambhão nāṇaphalabhavão micchadditṭhissa annanaṁ.
Also TSu, I. 33.
2 Cf. SthSu, II. 1. 71; TSū, I. 9-12. 3 See ADv, PP. 194-5; NSü, 4. 4 imdiyamanobhavan jam tam samvavahara-paccakkham-ViBh, 95.
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
