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THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERATION IN INDIAN RELIGIONS
attain equal perfection. Nothing is beyond the comprehension of an omniscient.
When kevalajñāna dawns, all the other four types of knowledge, viz, mati, śruta, avadhi and manaḥparyāya become extinct just as at the rise of sun in the sky all the luminous objects lose their luminosity. All the five types of knowledge cannot remain together. Only first four types of knowledge can be possessed simultaneously by one being, because kevalajñāna is complete in itself. It stands alone without any assistance. The self becomes omniscient and all-perceiving through its own efforts, obtains the infinite bliss which transcends sense experience and which is spiritual and self-determined.54
Kevalajñāna is the light of all knowledge. It is perfect in itself without any cause, effort or source. H.R. Kapadia states :
“Kevalajñāna which is perfectly perfect, is a priceless attainment of the soul in its thoroughly pure and undefiled condition. In this all embracing knowledge, all the objects of knowledge of the past, present and future scintillate like stars in the infinite firmament” 55
The author of the Niyamasāra also asserts that the pure knowledge which knows the material and immaterial, the conscious, the self and all other substances, is direct and beyond the comprehension of the senses. 58
FOUR TYPES OF INTUITIONS (DARŠANAS)
The term darśana represents undifferentiated cognition which means ‘seeing' and 'intuition'. It is of four types, namely eye-intuition (cakşurdarśana), intuition other than the eye-intuition which is through mind and other sense-organs (acak şurdarśana), the remaining two intuitions being miraculous powers (avadhidarśana and kevaladarśana).
Pujyapāda asserts that jñāna and darśana occur in succession in ordinary mortals but simultaneously in the kevalins.57 Some thinkers advanced objections to the theory that jñāna and darśana of a kevalin occur simultaneously, because these two conscious activities cannot occur simultaneously according to the Agamic principle. The
54. 55. 56. 57.
Pañcāstikāya, 29, H. R. Kapadia, The Jaina Religion and Literature, vol. I, p. 104. Niyamasāra, 166. Sarvärthasiddhi, JI. 9.
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