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36
EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE AGAMAS
[CH.
our knowledge goes, among the later Jaina logicians there has been none to uphold this old position, except Siddhasenaganin, the commentator of Umāsvāti's Tattvārtha-sūtra-bhāsya, and Upādhyāya Yaśovijaya of the seventeenth century, who has only summarized arguments of Jinabhadra in his Jaina-tarka-bhāṣā. Thus our enquiry will be based on the works of Umāsvāti, Jinabhadra, Siddhasenaganin and Yasovijaya. We shall refer to the works of Pūjyapada Devanandi, Akalanka, Vidyānandi, Vādi-Devasūri and Hemacandra only by way of contrast. In this chapter we are mainly concerned with the Āgamic conception and as such should leave the details of the theories of the later logicians out of account in the present context.
Umāsvāti defines avagraha as 'indeterminate intuitional cognition of their respective objects by the sense-ogans.'1 The avagraha cognizes only the general features of an object. It is indeterminate. The distinctive characteristics of the object are not cognized by it. The object presented in it is indeterminate and free from association with names. The Nandi Sūtra cites the sound-consciousness of a man just awakened from sleep by hearing the sound as an example of arthāvagraha (object-perception by the sense-organ of ear. The man is conscious of some sound, but he does not cognize the definite nature of the sound at this stage. According to Jinabhadra, the consciousness of such a person has not even taken the form of 'This is sound' inasmuch as the cognition 'This is sound' is determinate and discursive and requires more than one instant for developing such form which is possible only in the third stage called apāya (perceptual judgment).* The arthāvagraha (object-perception), being instantaneous, cannot be considered to have developed such a form. The object of arthāvagraha is some common feature, indefinite and devoid of any individual characteristic, name etc.5
What then is the exact nature of arthāvagraha (object-perception)? Object-perception is the consummation of vyañjanāvagraha (contactawareness and as such can be properly understood only when the nature of the latter is properly understood. Now what is vyañjana? What reveals an object even as a lamp reveals a jar is vyañjana. It is the relation of the physical sense-organ with the substance transformed into its sense-data such as sound-(atoms).' The vyañjanavagraha is not unconscious inasmuch as it is this that finally develops
1 tatrā 'vyaktam yathāsvam indriyair vişayāņām ālocanăvadhāraṇam avagrahaḥ-TSūBh, I. 15.
2 Cf. yad vijñānam.. sāmänyasyā 'nirdesyasya svarūpa-kalpanārahitasya nāmācikalpanārahitasya ca vastunaḥ paricchedakam so 'vagrahaḥ-Țīkā on TSūBh, I. 153 NSū, 35.
4 Sce ViBk, gathās 252-3. 3 sämannam aạiddesam sarūva-nāmāi-kappaņārahivarı--Vibh, 252. u ViBh, 194
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