________________
Chapter Five SIX APPROACHES TO OMNISCIENCE
IN INDIAN PHILOSOPHY The acceptance or non-acceptance of the idea of Omniscience in a particular system of Indian Philosophy can provide us with a new principle of division of the Indian systems. There are those like the Buddhists, the Jainas, the NyayaVaiseșikas, the Sainkhya-Yogins and the Vedāntins who accept the idea of Omniscience either as a religious dogma or as an epistemological-metaphysical principle. However, the idea is very important and fundamental both to the sástras and common usages. Its germinal concept can be traced back even to the Vedas. 1
However, the Cárvákas, the Indian Agnostics, the Mimariisakas reject the very idea of omniscience. The Carvakas, for example will naturally reject such an assumption because the last word in the Lokayata epistemology is direct senseperception. Hence, they cannot accept anything which is transempirical or transcendental like soul3, Godt, Paraloka), 1. Macdonell. A. A. : Vedic Mythology, Strassburg, 1897, pp.
22-26. 2. Debi Prasad Chattopadhyay thinks that “the purely destru
ctive or negative character of the Lokāyata-epistemology, as depicted by Madhava ( Sarva-Darsana-Sangraha, Eng. trans, E. B. Cowell, R. E. Gough, London, 1914), was fictitious Lokāyata. People's Publishing House, 1949, p. 30. He is of the opinion that though the Lokayata-emphasis is on the Primacy of sense perception, it accepts reason also.
See Ch. 1, Section 8. 3. Shastri, D. R. (ed.): Cárvá ka-Śaşhi, The Book Co.
Calcutta, 1928, Verses 14 & 49. 4. Ibid, Verses 41 & 42. 5. Ibid, Verses 33, 54 & 55.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
