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NATURE OF VALID COGNITION authoritative because the knowledge delivered by them is entirely related to facts which are unknown and unknowable by empirical organs of knowledge. This is the raison d'etre of the incorporation of the qualifying clause in the definition of valid cognition.
So far as the Vedāntists are concerned, the individual subject is identical with the Absolute Brahman impersonal and personal. The Personal Absolute is God and as such is omniscient because nescience (avidya) cannot conceal anything from His ken. The individual also has this prerogative in theory. But as he does not possess this perfection in practical experience, it is postulated that an individual person (jiva) suffers from super-imposition of nescience. When this nescience is dispelled by final enlightenment, omniscience dawns upon him automatically. It is this nescience which makes an individual unaware of his natural property, namely, fullknowledge. Knowledge in his case presupposes the removal of nescience. When a man sees a phenomenon, say a pen, a table or a chair and comes to have knowledge of an object, it means not the acquisition of new knowledge but the removal of the veil of nescience. The objects concerned were not previously known by the indiviqual because they were veiled by nescience. So every case of empirical cognition is the discovery of a fact previously shut out from his ken by the barrier of nescience. When a man searches for his pen which he uses on every occasion of writing and finds it out he thinks that he sees it again. The pen though known before has been in the interval again shrouded by nescience and its subsequent knowledge becomes possible on the elimination of the obstructive veil of ignorance. So there is no repetition even when it is a cognition of the substance. The substance and mode are not absolutely different entities as the latter cannot be ontologically separated from the former. That they are distinguished is only due to our failure to envisage them in their proper perspective. Accordingly, the difficulty raised by Siddharyi will not affect the epistemological position of the Vedantist.
We think that the Vedāntist and the Jaina philosophers do not hold irreconcilably divergent position The Jaina philosophers hold that knowledge of all things is inherent in the subject, but the obstruction caused by the karmic veil enveloping the potential knowledge makes it unknown. When on the operation of the requisite pramana, the karmic veil is eliminated (kşaya) or made to subside (upaśama), the knowledge takes place. It is rather a case of discovery and not an acquisition of an unattained knowledge. This is the position of the Vedāntists also to all intents. That Siddhasena did not incorporate
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| SR No. | 522601 |
| Book Title | Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 1 |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Nathmal Tatia |
| Publisher | Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur |
| Publication Year | 1971 |
| Total Pages | 414 |
| Language | English, Hindi |
| Classification | Magazine, India_Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin, & India |
| File Size | 9 MB |