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 113

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PROOFS FOR THE SOUL BEING..
from the combination also”,117 as “an unreal being cannot come into being."118 This means that if consciousness is absolutely unreal, it can never become real, so it must exist in the soul. If it were not so, man might have been turned into matter and vice versa if the underlying material elements would have found favourable developments.119
It can also be argued for the exisience of soul that since attributes of a substance having form must be with form, so knowledge etc. being formless, it must be with the formless, i.e, soul. Like begets like and hence qualities like consciousness cannot be produced by material body.
The soul is also knowable mediately through many other agencies. One argument is advanced on the analogy of a controller (Adhisthāna).120 The human body can be moved and controlled at will like a machine or motor-car, and, therefore, there must be someone that moves and controls it. There must be some agent who moves and controls our diffe. rent organs and senses. However, an objector can point out that as an automatic machine moves itself or as our different instincts, reflexes work themselves, so to posit something else may not be quite correct. However, it cannot be denied that this argument is in line with common-sense, of which the Jainas are the great champions.
The existence of soul is also proved on the ground that the term Jīva (soul) is a singular term having its own derivation and consequent significance and meaning and this meaning is the concept of soul.121 There is a relation of uni
117 Haribhadra, śāstra-Vārtā-Samuccaya, 44. 118 Kuniakunda, Pancastikaya Sarz, 19, cp, Sinky 2-käriki, 9; Charlıgya
Up. VI. 2.2; Brahma Sutra (S.B.), 11.1.18; Bhagavat Gitā, II. 16. 119 Sukhalal Sanghavi, Darsana Aur Cintana, pp. 231-232. He lists
seven proofs for the existence of soul. 120 Viseşāvas yaka-bhās ya, 1557. 121 Ibid., 1575.