Jaina Concept of Omniscience

SR No.: 001547
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Ramjee Singh
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1974
Total Pages: 258
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, & Knowledge
File Size: 17 MB

Page 100

GRADATION OF SCULS AND STAGES OF OMNISCIENCE 87
but the last stage of spirituality (Sayoga Kevalin) but the soul still is subject to certain activities conditional upon matter. 84 However, in the fourteenth and final spiritual stage, when the inflow of Karmic-particles have absolutely stopped and his vibratory activity has completely ceased, he is said to be a non-vibrating omniscient lord (Ayoga-Kevalin).65 Such a soul is devoid of eight kinds of karmas and instead possesses eightfold excellences of omniscience (Kevala Jñana), perfect cona. tion (Kevala darśana), infinite power ( Ananta Virya), perfect right belief (Samyaktra), un-disturbability (Ayrābādha), interpenetrability (Avagāhanatva), and neither of low nor of high family (Agurulaghutva).66 These excellences of the liberated souls or the siddhas are mentioned to refute the views of the following sects, namely, Sadāśiva (the view that the soul was never actually bound by the Karmas), Sārkhya (which holds
that bondage, liberation and transmigration, happiness and : misery are merely in Prakrti), Maskaris (according to which the soul after liberation can be affected by the Karmas and can return to the world again), Buddhas (who believe that everything is transcient), the Naiyāyikas and the Vaiseșikas (according to whom liberation means annihilation of happiness or the qualities of the soul), Issaravādins (for whom God is always free and creates the world) and the Mandalins (who hold that the liberated soul has an ever-lasting upward motion.$)
We can say on the basis of the above that for Jainas, omniscience is the legitimate claim of every soul, as it follows from the essential nature of the soul as. consciousness. Whatever might be its religious and spiritual implications, omniscience is the natural culmination of consciousness. If soul is inherently possessed of the infinite knowledge c'c. (vide the doctrine of Ananta-Catustaya) which is temporarily lost due to Karmic-obstacles, its recovery is natural, if cre is able to
64 Nemicandra, Ibid., 64. 65 lbid., 64.
66 67
Ibid., 68. Ibid., 69.