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 54

THE BELIEVERS IN OMNISCIENCE
have extra-ordinary powers of cognition like the extra-sensory perception, clairvoyance, clair-audience, pre-cognition, etc. and they may also lead to omniscience. The Nyāya-Vaiseșikas recognise Alaukika Pratyaksa, of which the Yogaja (Yogic-intuition) is one of the three varities. The latter may also produce omniscience, though every yogi does not possess the power of omniscience but only those who acquire it through special yogic efforts. Yogic omniscience thus differs from divine omniscience in that it is produced, while the latter is eternal.58 According to Yoga, omniscience rests in the intellect and is brought about by practice and conquest of desires, 5B Sāmādhis4 etc. This omniscience is the truely discriminative knowledge of all Inings existing at any times.55 The Tantras present "the most extensive reading of the Yoga”.50 They declare that "an insight and pure life combined with a deep and intense appeal to devotion to the divinity automatically awaken the Divine Sakti in man."57 Whereas Patañjali-Yoga has been essentially the yoga of knowledge, the Tantric Yoga "never looses sight of the dynamism of the spirit and underestimate the creative power of will. The world is will and will is power.”58 The Kundalini is the great hidden reservoir of psychic and spiritual force, and when stirred up, it generates a force which activates our whole being and endows it with a colossal power and super-human omniscience. “The yoga of kundalini moves the fibres of our existence so powerfully that our knowledge moves from the personal to the supra-cosmic."5 9
52 Prasasta pada Bhāșya, p. 187; Nyāyakandali, p. 195. 53 Yoga Sutra 3.2. 54 Ibid., III. 49; IV. 29. 55 Ibid., III.54. 56 Sircar M. N. Mysticism of the Hindus (Calcutta, Bharti Mahavidyā
laya, 1951), p. 72. 57 Bose D. N. & Haldar H. Tantras. Their Philosophy and Occult Sc
jences (Calcutta, Orintal Publishing, 1956), pp. 99-100. . 58 Sircar M. N. Ibid., p. 76. 59 A Ibid., p. 140. JCO-6