The Jaina holds with
prabhakara that cognition is always apprahended by the self. Cognitio
reeas itsef, the self and it s object. Every act of cognition coginizses
itself, the cognizig subject and the cognized object. But the Jaina denies
that consciousnee alosne is self- luminous. He regards self is the subject
of interna perception. Whe I feel that I am happy have a distinct and
immediate apprehension of the self as an obeject of internal perception,
just as pkeasure can be perceive though it is without form. �Oh Fautama�
said Mahavira,�the self is pratyaksa even to you The soul is
cognizeabel even to you.46 again unlike the view of prabhakara. The Jainas
hold that it is the object of perception ad it is maifested by external
and internal perception. To the question �how can the subject be an object
of erception?� the Jaina replies that whatever is experienced is an object
of perception
William
James made a distinction between the empirical self, the me, and the
transcedental self, the I. The self is party the known and partly the
knower, partly object and partly subject. The empirical ego is the self as
knowm, the pure ego is the knower. It is that which at any moment is
conscuous.� Whereas the me is ony one of the thig which it is conscious
of. But this thinker is not a passint state. It is something deeper and
less mutable.49 prof. Ward holds that tha pure self is always immaent in
experience, in the sense that experience, without the experient will be
uninteligible. It is also transcedental, in the sese that it can never be
the object of our experece.50 The Jainas were aware that consciousness
of self is not possible by ordiary cognition Therefore, they said it is
due to internal perception.
Self- consciouses does not belong to the ream of pure cosciousewss
which is foungational ad withou limitaiton. That is the cetaa which
is the esssential quality of the soul. But whe we descend to the practical
leve, te realm of vyavahara, we find the distinction between
subject ad object in consciousness. The question whether the self is
perceived by direct experiece likes the iternal perception of the Jainas.
, or by the immediate untuition, (pratibha jnana) of the Cedantins
is raise das a consequece of this distction. In all this, the question is
answered from the empirical pointof view on this basis, we any say that
there are two aspects of consciousness: a) emprirical consciousness. Atma
is pure consiousneess. Jiva is consciousness limited by the organism. Atma
is the subject of conscounees. It is also te object of interna perception.
But only in sense that it is immanent in conscousness though ot clearly
cognised as object. Jiva is both the subject and the object of
cosciousness, because it is the cognizer as well as the cognized.
iv. The
Agama theroy of knowledge is very old and probabalu orginated in the
premahavirea period . the jana pravada formed a part of the
purvasrut which formed a par of the ancient literature. Jinabhadra in his
Visesavasykabhasya, quotes a purva Gatha on nana. There seems to
have been no diffecence of opioon between the fooowers of parsvea and
mahavira rearding the diision of kowledge. Both of them accept the five
fold distinction of kowledge. The agamas have also preseted the five
dividions of knowledge.
