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 122

THE BASIC POSTULATE OF THE THEORY
109
world, I hope, Mrs. Stevenson, if she cares to be a little impartial, will agree that if everything is attributed to Him, then a God all-merciful (being also omnipotent) has to be a God un just. In fact, the science of karma is the real science of spirituality, in so far as it tries to unfold the real nature of spirit or self. This is self-knowledge or self-realisation. But to know the self is also to know that it is different from the non-self, with which it is in beginningless .conjunction. Karma is the material basis of this conjunction which is nothing other than the bondage of karma. Unless, we have a thorough knowledge of karma, we cannot know about the true nature of spirit or self. The knowledge of karma removes the false notion of identity between the body and the self and so on. Individual differences and acquisitions all being due to karmas, its knowledge is essential for both self-knowledge and selfrealisation. The entire doctrine of karma is based on the belief that the universe is a system subject to laws inherent in its own constitution.15 It also involves the idea of immortality of soul and metempsychosis because if the work of fruition has not been fully worked out in one life, future ife is a logical necessity. Hence the belief in the transmigration and immortality also follows This is nothing other than the science of spiritulity. The explanation of the world and the place of man in it have always proved the Procrustian bed of spiritualistic metaphysics, so much so that some like the Advaitins, while trying to explain them had to explain them away. Others like the Buddhists had to reduce them to mere nothingness.
Literally, karna means 'action' or deed. The common poople use it in the sense of 'work' or 'profession'. But the Sāsiras give a much wider denotation to it to include all types of actions-voluntary or non-voluntary, of human beings or
15
cp. William James' statement : "Spiritualism means the affirmation of an eternal moral order....”--Pragmatism, pp. 106-107.