Dr. N.L. Kachhara
Darshana is awareness or self-awareness. Jainism does not differentiate between jnana and darshana as far as the cognizer and the object are concerned. Darshana is devoid of judgment; it is more like awareness without any predication.
Like jnana, the darshana attribute of the soul is also veiled by karma. In its veiled state the manifested darshana attribute is divided into five categories, of which the last category, slumber (nidra), is further divided into five types. The 9 types of darshana, defined by their respective obscuring karma, include:
- Chaksudarshana apprehends an object through the sense of sight
- Achaksudarshana generally understood to be the apprehension of an object through non-visual senses and the mind, but some scholars have objected to this because the mind has no darshana
- Avadhidarshana clairvoyance qua intuition
- Kevaladarshana omniscience qua intuition
According to the theory of karma, the remaining 5 types of slumber (nidra) do not put any obstruction on jnana or darshana, but rather obscure the cognition of details.
