Jnanendriya
Jñānendriya (IAST)Translation: "Organs of Knowledge"
A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy
Sanskrit: ज्ञानेन्द्रिय
Transliteration: Jñānendriya
Translation: "organs of knowledge; senses of knowledge"
Definition:
- The five cognitive sense organs are the organs of knowledge. They are the organs of hearing (Śrotra), touch (Tvak), sight (Cakṣuḥ), taste (Rasana), and smell (Ghrāṇa).
- The Sāṅkhya school also includes the mind (Manas) as one of the sense organs. The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika also includes mind as one of the Indriyas.
- They are also referred to as the "internal senses" as they impact knowledge from inside.
Sanskrit: इन्द्रिय
Transliteration: Indriya
Meaning: "sense organ; “pertaining to Indra”"
- According to Buddhists, the senses are but orbs.
- According to the Mīmāṃsakas, the senses are the capacities of the orbs.
- According to Advaita Vedānta, the senses are the instruments of perception.
- According to Dvaita Vedānta, the senses are the five external senses, the mind (Manas), and the witness consciousness (Sākṣin).
- The five organs of knowledge are the ear (Śrotra), skin (Tvak), eye (Cakṣus), tongue (Jihvā), and nose (Ghrāṇa).
- The five organs of action (Karmendriya) are the voice (Vāk), hand (Pāṇi), foot (Pāda), organ of excretion (Pāyu), and the organ of generation (Upastha).
- According to Nyāya, a sense organ is the seat of such contact with the mind which causes a cognition.
Glossary to the Record of Yoga (Sri Aurobindo)
Indriya – sense-organ, especially any of “the five perceptive senses of hearing, touch, sight, taste, and smell, which make the five properties of things their respective objects;” the sense-faculty in general, “fundamentally not the action of certain physical organs, but the contact of consciousness with its objects” (Saṃjñāna). Each of the physical senses has two elements, “the physical-nervous impressions of the object and the mental-nervous value we give to it;” the mind (Manas) is sometimes regarded as a “sixth sense,” though “in fact it is the only true sense organ and the rest are no more than its outer conveniences and secondary instruments.
The Serpent Power (Arthur Avalon)
Sensations aroused by sense-objects are experienced by means of the outer instruments (Bahya-Kāraṇa) of the Lord of the body, or senses (Indriya), which are the gateways through which the Jīva receives worldly experience. These are ten in number, and are of two classes: viz., the five organs of sensation or perception (Jñānendriya), or ear (hearing), skin (feeling by touch), eye (sight), tongue (taste), and nose (smell); and the five organs of action (Karmendriya), which are the reactive response which the self makes to sensation — namely, mouth, hands, legs, anus, and genitals, whereby speaking, grasping, walking, excretion, and procreation are performed, and through which effect is given to the Jīva's desires. These are afferent and efferent impulses respectively.
The Indriya, or sense, is not the physical organ, but the faculty of mind operating through that organ as its instrument. The outward sense-organs are the usual means whereby on the physical plane the functions of hearing and so forth are accomplished. But as they are mere instruments and their power is derived from the mind, a Yogi may accomplish by the mind only all that may be done by means of these physical organs without the use of the latter.
With reference to their physical manifestations, but not as they are in themselves, the classes into which the Indriya are divided may be described as the sensory and motor nervous systems. As the Indriya are not the physical organs, such as ear, eye, and so forth, but faculties of the Jīva desiring to know and act by their aid, the Yogi claims to accomplish without the use of the latter all that is ordinarily done by their means. So a hypnotized subject can perceive things, even when no use of the special physical organs ordinarily necessary for the purpose is made. The fact of there being a variety of actions does not necessarily involve the same number of Indriya. An act of "going" done by means of the hand (as by a cripple) is to be regarded really as an operation of the Indriya of feet (Padendriya), even though the hand is the seat of the Indriya for handling. By the instrumentality of these Indriya, things are perceived and action is taken with reference to them. The Indriya are not, however, sufficient in themselves for this purpose. In the first place, unless attention (Alochana) co-operates, there is no sensation at all. To be "absent-minded" is not to know what is happening. Attention must therefore co-operate with the senses before the latter can "give" the experiencer anything at all. Next, at one and the same moment, the experiencer is subject to receive a countless number of sensations which come to and press upon him from all sides. If any of these is to be brought into the field of consciousness, it must be selected to the exclusion of others. The process of experience is the selection of a special section from out of a general whole, and then being engaged on it, so as to make it one's own, either as a particular object of thought or a particular field of operation. Lastly, as Western psychology holds, the senses give not a completed whole, but a manifold — the manifold of sense. These "points of sensation" must be gathered together and made into a whole. These three functions of attention, selection, and synthesizing the discrete manifold of the senses, are those belonging to that aspect of the mental body, the internal agent (Antaḥ-Karaṇa), called Manas. Just as Manas is necessary to the senses (Indriya), the latter are necessary for Manas. For the latter is the seat of desire, and cannot exist by itself. It is the desire to perceive or act, and therefore exists in association with the Indriyas.
References:
- Grimes, John (1996). A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English. Albany: State University of New York Press
- Hartz, Richard. Glossary to the Record of Yoga (Sri Aurobindo). Retrieved from http://wiki.auroville.org.in/wiki/Glossary_to_the_Record_of_Yoga
- Avalon, Arthur (1950). The Serpent Power: Being the Shat-Chakra-Nirūpana and Pādukā-Panchakā. Adyar, Madras: Ganesh & Co. (Madras) Ltd. p. 59-61.
