Enlightened Vision of the Self

Author(s): Akalankadev, Devendra K Goyal
Publisher: Radiant Publishers New Delhi

Page 31

FOREWORD
This characteristic of atman (soul) being body-sized is meant to refute the view of the Naiyyayikas, the Vaisheshikas, the Samkhyas, the Mimamsakas and the like who hold that the soul is omnipresent like ether. They believe in the existence of many souls but do not admit that they are equal in extent to their own bodies. They say that all the souls are all-pervasive, i.e. present everywhere. To admit a soul to be equal in extent to its own body is a unique conception of the Jains. The doctrine which advocates the ribhitra of atman (a soul is everywhere) is a doctrine which, on the face of it, says the Jaina, is contrary to our experience.34
On the other hand, knowledge, being the innate nature or quality of the Self, has the capacity to know the various objects of knowledge in the world. In that sense, the Self may be said to be as extensive as the whole universe or omnipresent (saruagata). Acharya Kundakunda observes: “The self is declared to be the extension of knowledge; knowledge the extension of the knowable; the knowable is the universe and that which is beyond the universe (alaka); therefore knowledge is omnipresent."35 Commenting on it, Acharya Amrtachandra remarks:
According to the saying “the substance has its qualities and modifications equivalent to itself," the self is the extension of the knowt edge; for it evolves without becoming more or less than the knowledge; and knowledge is the extension of the knowable; for it abides therein, as fire in the fuel. The knowable is as much as everything; it is the totality of the six substances.... Therefore knowledge is omnipresent. 36
But while the soul may be said to be omnipresent or as extensive as the knowable (i.e. the Universe) on account of knowledge, it does not pervade the Universe absolutely. The knower, i.e. the Self, knows and sees the whole world, without entering or taking hold, with its own pradeshas, of all the things which function as knowables. The objects do not exist in knowledge and there is no soul outside the body it occupies, for its attributes are found only in that body. "A soul is not all-pervasive because its qualities are not found everywhere."37
While the various objects appearing before the mirror of