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

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MÌMĀŃSAKAS OBJECTIONS ANSWERED
that esse is percipii. What they mean is that an attribute in order to be objective and not merely psychical does require an objective basis and that is dravya. Hence, it seems superfluous for the Jainas to say that the omniscient person knows also the attributes of the objects. In fact, objects cannot be conceived apart from attributes and vice-versa. 3. The Third Objection:
Even if we accept that the somniscient person knows everything with all their attributes," omniscience cannot be true and complete unless it extends over all the places and all the times. The omniscient must know all things in all places and times. Infact, according to Jainism, spatial and temporal limitations are transcended even in imperfect super-normal perception called avadhi, but only with regard to the objects having form.ar Even the highest type of avadhi, though it can perceive all objects having form, it cannot perceive all the modes of all the things.2 8 This is not, therefore, complete omniscience. With respect to anything that was, is, or will be the case, the omni. scient person knows them. But against such a conception of complete omniscience, the Mimāṁsakas ask whether it is successive or simultaneous, and they claim to show that in both the cases, it becomes impossible. If it is successive, it cannot be omniscience, since in that case the endless number of objects with their innumberable attributes can never be exhausted and thus the knowledge so conditioned would never be complete.2 9 The Jainas do not have any difficulty in making this point since they admit that the omniscient knowledge is not successive but simultaneous.30 But then the Mimāṁsakas ask whether
27 Umāsvāmī, T. Süt., I. 28. 28 Jinabhadra, Kşamāśramana, Visesävasyaka-bhaşya, 685. 29 śāntrakṣita, Ibid., 3250, cp. Prabhācandra, Prameya-kamala-martanda
p. 254, Nyāya-kumuda-candra, Vol. I. p. 88; Anantavirya, Ibid., pp.
97-98; Anantakīrti, Brhad-Sarva jña-siddhi, p. 151. 30 Prabhācandra, Nyāya-kumuda-candra, Pt. I, p. 97, Prameya-kamala.
martanda, p. 26.