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EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE AGAMAS
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organisms have neither the tongue to speak nor the ear to listen, nor have they any symbols of their own. But nevertheless, according to the Jaina thinkers, the one-sensed organisms are capable of potential verbal thinking. Though we are unable to know the exact nature of the process of their thinking, yet we can have some inkling of its nature by the consideration of the external activities of the one-sensed organisms. The Bṛhadvṛtti1 gives a number of instances from the plant world to prove by inference that even the one-sensed plants can hear sound, see colour, smell odour, and experience taste, and says that as in these cases the sensuous functions are carried out by the internal capacity of the organisms even in the absence of the external sense-organs so also can there be possible the existence of bhavaśruta in the absence of dravya-śruta.2 Dravya-śruta is the exponent of thinking while bhava-śruta is such thinking itself. The question whether thinking without language is possible is the upshot of our enquiry. The Jaina scriptures recognize ten instincts (sanna) in the one-sensed organisms-such as the instincts of hunger, fear, sex attraction, possession etc. The Brhadvṛtti says that these instincts are impossible without bhava-śruta 'internal capacity for verbal thinking"." The famous commentator Malayagiri maintains that the instinct is a kind of desire and quotes a passage from the Avaśyakaṭikā, which says that the instinct for food means 'desire for food', is born of the feeling of hunger, and is a particular disposition of the soul." He further maintains that a desire is a determinate willing for the acquisition of the object of desire. It is of the form 'such and such object is wholesome for me; it will be good if I can secure it'. Of course, in the case of one-sensed organisms the desires are not couched in articulate language. But nevertheless they must have some sort of instrument
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1 On ViBh, 103.
2 Cf. tataś ca yathai 'teşu dravyendriyasattve 'pi etad bhavendriyajanyam juanaṁ sakala-jana-prasiddham asti, tatha dravyaśrutabhave bhāvaśrutam api bhavisyati-Bṛhadvṛtti on ViBh, 103.
N.B.-Bhāvendriya is the capacity of the soul to have various sensuous experiences, dravyendriya means the external physical sense-organ.
3 kati nam bhamte! egimdiyāṇaṁ sannão pannattão? goyama! dasa, tam jahā āhārasanna bhaya-sanna mehunasanna pariggaha-sanna koha-sannā mānasannā māyā-sanna lobha-sanna oha-sannä loga-sanna ya tti-Quoted in NSVṛ on sūtra 40. Also see BhSū, VII. 8 (295); Prajñāpana, samjñāpada (8).
4 na cai 'taḥ samjñā bhava-śrutam antareno 'papadyante-Bṛhadvṛtti, ViBh, 103.
5 samjña ca abhilaṣa ucyate yata uktam Avasyakaṭīkāyām-āhāra-saṁjñā ähäräbhilaṣaḥ kṣudvedaniya-prabhavaḥ khalv ātmapariņāma-viseṣaḥ-Malayagiri's tīkā (p. 140) on NSü.
6 Ibid.
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