I. The Jaina attitude is empritical and realistic. The
Unpanisadic philosophers found the immutabel reality behig the world of
experience. Fautama, the Buddha, denouced everything as fleeting and full
of sorrow.mahaira stood on commonsese and experience and found no
contradiction between permaence and found no contradiction between
permanence and change. The Jaina philosophy is based on logic and
experience. Moksa is the ultimate aim of life. It is realised by the
three- fold path of right intuitio right kowledge ad right conduct. Right
knowledge is one of the major problems of Jaina philosophy. It is
necessary to understand the Jaina theory of knowedge and experience for
the proper understanding of Jaina thought. The Jaina epistemology is very
complex and developed gradually in reponse to the demand of time.
The problemof mid
eludes the grasp of philosophers and psychologists because it can
beanalyzed into both metaphysical and psychological problems.
Metaphysicallyt it refers to mind as the principle of the universe stading
in realation to the phenomenal world. This is the cosmic princple which is
emphasized by the idealists as the primary principle. Psychologically, it
is the individual mind, the individual’s system of psychic stated in
realation to the worls of sense. Phgilosophers could not make a
distinction between the two aspects of the problem.
The Indian thinkers
were gropig to grasp the itangible,the ineffable and the immaterial.the
distinction between mind and matter, the mental and the physical, was
vague and unclear. In the pre-Upanisadic thought, the principle of
Ttabecame the principle of order in the universe. It is the underlying
dynami force at the basis of the universe.” Even the Gods cannot
transgress it.” We see in the conception of Rta the development from the
physichal to the dicie.2 it is by the force of Rta that human brains
function.” Man kows by the divie force of the same immanent power which
makes fire to burn and river to flow.3 The interpretatio of the famous
Rgvedic hymn of creation. “nasad asin no sad asit tadanim” ad again of
“kamas tad agre samavrtatadhi manaso retah prathamain yad asit . sato
bandhumasti niravindahradi pratisya kavayo manisa”4 gives a
description that for the first time there aswose
kama
which had the primeel
germ of maas withi it. Similarly the word krtu is shown to be the
antecedent of the word manas or prajna. In sat. bra
4.1.4.1. there a statemet that when a man wishes, “may I do that may I
have that,” that is Krtu, when he attains it, that is Daksa. The same term
later changed its meaning to manas and prajna. 5
The analysis of the Jaina theory of mind shows that there
has been a conflict between the metaphysical and the psychological
approaches to the problem. It is predominatly a realistic approach. The
mind and its stares are analysed on the empirical level. The Jaina ideal
is Moksa, freedom of the soul from the impurities of Karma. The purity and
the divinty of the soul to the basic concepts of the Jaina philosophy, ad
mind had to be linked with the soul ad interpreted in the metaphysical
terms.
The function of mind which is an inner organ, is
knowing and thinking. Sthanaga described it as samkalpa
vyparavati. Anuvamisika gives the citta vijnana as equivalent of
the manas: “ Citta manoveijanaam it I paryayah” The
Viseasvasyakabhasya defines manas in terms of menta processes.6 It is
taken in the subtanitive sense. The Nyayakosa defines manas
in the sense of the inner organ which controls the mental functions.
It is difficult to define mind. If at all it is to be
defined, it is always in terms of its own processes. Even the
psychologists of the preset day find it difficult to give a definition of
mind without reference to the menta processess. Older psychologists meant
by mind something that expresses its nature, powers and functions in the
modes of individual experiences and of bodil activity. Mc Dougall also
says that wr are boung to postulate that “something” ; ad “I do not
thing”, he writes, “that we ca find a better word to denote something than
the old fashioned word mind.” 7 Mcdougall defines mind as an orgaized
system pre-scientific concept. It covers the whole field of interna
experiece.8
The Jainas did not merelu postulate the existaence
of mind without any evidece. They found the evidence in the experiences fo
the world. They also give the empirical proof for the operation of the
mind. The contact of the sense organ with the soul alone does not give
cognition in the reevant experiences because there is the absence of
manas something else is necessary for the coginition, and that is the
mind. Agaain, the mind has the functional connotation which speaks for its
nature. “just as speech signifies the function of burning and the lifht
shows the light.”9
Orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy postulate the
existence of mind as an interna sense organ. In the evidence of cognition
the contact of the soul with the sense organs in not sufficient. We must
posit the existence of manas, some additional condition, which
brings them together. For instance a man may not hear a sound or see an
object when the mind is pre-ocupied when the mind is elsewhere as we read
in the Upanisads. There is also the positive evidence in the facts of
memeory ad of experiences like pleasure and pain.10 Asmind is not
tangible, the proof of mind has always to be indirect, and not direct.
McDougall infers the structure of the mind from its functions. He
writesthat we have to build up our description of the mind by gathering
all possible facts of human experience and behabiour, and by inferring
from these the nature and structure of mind. He thus makes a distinction
between the facts of menta activities ad the facts of mental structure. It
is comparable to the sturcture and the functions of the mechanical joy; ad
one who wishes to ascertain the nature of the machinery within it, ca only
watch it movemet under carious condiditons.11
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