Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 1

Author(s): Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 150

ÉPISTEMIC SUBJECT
139
sponsored by Vijñana-Bhikṣu. The second interpretation is said to be given by Vindhyavāsin' and his followers and is at present sponsored by Vacaspati Misra in the Samkh yatattvakaumudi. According to the second interpretation, the self (puruşa) is absolutely static and unchanging, but being transparent, it casts its light on the mind or intellect by its mere presence. The colouring of the crystal owing to its contact with the red flower is an example. The red colour is only an appearance. So also the mental states appear to be conscious on account of the reflection of the self upon them. The self remains absolutely unaffected and there is no reflection of the mental states upon it. The reflection in this case is a false appearance, but the self remains immune from the contamination of false appearance. But whether the self is qualified by the appearance of the mental activity or entirely dissociated from it, the manifestation of the reflection either in the pure self or in the mind cannot be understood without some sort of activity on the part of the self.
The incorporation of the psychical modes nnd transitions as the properties of the self marks out the Jaina conception of the self from the Nyāya-Vaiseșika school. The latter maintains that cognition, feeling, volition, and their subtle traces actually occur in the self. But they do not induce any change in the cognizer. But the fact that these psychical events emerge and disappear in the very being of the self entails necessarily the transition of the self. It is asserted by the Nyaya-Vaiseșika that these mental states become related to the self by means of inherence (samavāya). But the conception of inherence is not free from logical difficulty. After all it must be admitted that these states are the properties of the self and as they emerge and perish in the self, the self must be believed to have the capacity for appropriation of new mental states and abandonment of the previous ones and this is the connotation of change.
The self is known by its own experience, that is to say, it is always self-conscious. This also constitutes its difference from the self as conceived by the Nyaya-Vaiseșika school.
The last adjective 'not of the nature of earth' emphasizes the immateriality of the self. This runs counter to the theory of the materialists who dogmatically assert that consciousness is a by-product of the four or five elements, earth, water, fire, air and also ether (ākaša) when they are combined in the form of the physical organism, in terms of modern physiology in the constitution of the cerebrum and
1.
Ibid.