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THE WORLD OF JAINISM
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However, the difficulty persisted It was difficult on this contention to understand how memory, recognition, etc could be explained without assuming the existence of mind This difficulty forced the Jama thinkers, later on, to accoid to mind the status of a quasi-sense organ (no-ndriya) but not a sense oigan (anındriya) Pressed by the internal necessity of the system to counter the persistent attack on it by the rival sistems the concep. of mind gained importance in the Jama philosophy later on Consequently the mind was accepted as a sense organ in Jainism and was defined as that which had for its cognition the data of all the senses (sarvartha grahanam nanah) It was regarded to be made of subtle matter (manovar gana),
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The Senses
As has been stated earlier, the Jainas believe that there are five senses, and all of them are viewed in two aspects. (1) physical (dravya-indriya), and (2) psychical (bhava-indriya." The first iefers to physical organs and their function, and the second refers to the psychological activity of attainment (labdhi) of knowledge The attainment of knowledge, as has been stated cailier, occurs due to partial or total destruction of knowledge covering Kaimas Thus the senses have but to perform a passive iole in the activity of perception. It is the soul which is the master of all
Perception
The senses are capacities of soul, and they are instruments of soul through which the soul enjoys the external qualities, like form, sound, sapid, etc Jainism presents an elaborate analysis of the objects of the senses Perception or mati-nana is the result of contact between the senses and their objects Leaving aside the visual perception where there is no direct contact (sparsa) between the eye and its object, eg colour, the other four kinds of perception take place as a result of direct contact or touch between the sense organs and their respective objects Perception is further classified into different kinds, such as quick, hidden, lasting and so on Other psychological processes such as avagraha, tha and dharana have already been discussed in the section on epistemology
40
39 Tattvartha Sutra, II, 16
As regards the problem of emotions and feelings, the Jainas hold almost the same view as that of the Buddhists or other ethical oriented systems of Indian philosophy A reference, to this is made in the section on the Jaina ethics
40 Ibid
