Some Problems in Jaina Psychology

SR No.: 001260
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T G Kalghatgi
Publisher: Karnatak University Dharwar
Publication Year: 1961
Total Pages: 205
Language: English
Classification: Book_English & Philosophy
File Size: 13 MB

Page 164

SUPERNORMAL PERCEPTION
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life, can apprehend the future as future. It is, therefore, possible for the white omniscient soul, who is entirely free from the fetters of karma, to have a super-sensuous vision of the whole world, past, present and future, by a single unending flash of intuition. In the Pramānamimärsā, the possibility of the occurrence of omniscience is logically proved by the necessity of the final consummation of the progressive development of knowledge.78 There are degrees of excellence in knowledge, and the knowledge must reach its consummation somewhere. That is the stage of omniscience, when the obscuring karmas are totally annihilated.
We may briefly refer to the distinction in kevala jñāna' mentioned in the Nandisutra. Kevala jñāna is of two types, (i) bhavastha, the omniscience of the liberated who still live in this world, as for instance the omniscience of the Tīrthankaras; and (ii) the omniscience of one who is totally liberated, who may be called siddha. The bhavastha omniscience is, again, of two types (i) sayogi and (ii) avogi. There are subdivisions in both these. Similarly, siddhu omniscience is of two types, (i) anantara kevala and (ii) parampara kevala, each having its own subdivisions.79 The classification of omniscience as described in the Nandisūtra is given in table No. IX. This classification of omniscience into various types is not psychologically significant. It has possibly arisen out of the general tendency, mentioned elsewhere, for mathematical calculations and minute classifications.
The Jaina view of omniscience may be compared to the Nyāya view of divine knowledge 80 and the yoga theory of divine perception.81 Divine knowledge is all-embracing and eternal. It has no break. It is a single all-embracing intuition. It is perceptual in character, as it is direct and not derived through the instrumentality of any other cognition. The divine perception grasps the past, the present, and the future in one eternal 'now'. The soul, according to the Jainas, is itself divine and perfect, and there is no transcendental being other than the individual soul. Each soul is a god by itself, although it is obscured by the karmic veil in its empirical state. The kaivalya state of the individual soul may be compared to the divine omniscience. However, the Naiyāyikas and Patañjali admit that man has sometimes a flash of intuition of the future and can attain omniscience by constant meditation and practice of austerities. The Jainas believe that, by the removal of obscuring karmas by meditation, the threefold path and self-control, the individual soul reaches the consummation of omniscience, the state of kaivalya. That is the finality of experience. But others, like the Naiyāyikas, posit a divine omniscience which is higher and natural and eternal.
78 Pramānamimāṁsā, I, 1, XVI and Commentary. 79 Nandisutra, Gatha 19--23, and disscussion, 80 Nyāyumañjari, p. 200. 81 Yogasūtra, I, 25,