Reals on the Jaina Metaphysics

SR No.: 001619
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: Shatnidas Khetsy Charitable Trust Mumbai
Publication Year: 1966
Total Pages: 430
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Religion, & Epistemology
File Size: 8 MB

Page 384

Soul
sensuous and the non-sensuous opposes the possibility of omniscience. The non-sensuous or internal perception consists in pleasurable or painful feelings, arising from within the Soul itself. None of these prove the impossibility of omniscience. If it be said that the sensuous perception, opposes the possibility of omniscience, we ask, whose perception is it, your (i.e. the opponent's) own or other person's? If your own perception opposes it, there may be two alternatives. You may say that your perception at the present moment is opposed to omniscience; this position, however, is not contested. But if you say that your perception is at all times and in all places is opposed to omniscience, --we ask,-do you say it after having experience of all times and of all places or do you say it without having them? In the first case, you yourself are an omniscient being and thus contradict your own position. In the latter case, your assertion is dogmatic. If however, it be argued that other persons' perception opposes omniscience, all the difficulties just discussed crop up. It may be urged, moreover, that as no person can make you feel his own perception, you must be dependent on his ipse dixit, that omniscience is impossible. In that case, why should you not believe in our assertion regarding the possibility of omniscience? For all these reasons, the Pratyakṣa or direct perception cannot be said to oppose the possibility of omniscience. If it be said that our experience other than direct perception is opposed to omniscience, we ask what is this experience? You cannot say that as we have not yet come across an omniscient being in our experience, such a being must be impossible. For, when we are asleep, pillars, pitchers, lotus, flowers, clouds etc. are not perceived; but certainly we are not justified in saying that they are 'non-existent then. It cannot be said that the Pramāņa's,-Anumana or inference, Sabda or authority, Arthāpatti or the method of residues, Upamāna or analogy and Abhāva or proof with regard to non-existence, are opposed to the possibility of omniscience. Anumana cannot establish the non-existence of omniscient beings. Rather, it, in trying to do that, posits the
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