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INTRODUCTION
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knows and sees. So that, as concerns the knower, who develops an activity (yoga) of manifold efficacy, his entrance into the things, attains just as much reality as his non-entrance (PS 29 AC).
Amrtachandra explains the apparently contrary statements regarding Pravachanasara verses 26 and 27 with the help of Jaina doctrine of anekant (multifacetedness or many-sided view of the reality of things). He states that from the internal, self-referential (nishchaya) perspective, the worthy Lord, "knows without moving himself towards all the appearances of the knowables, since he never leaves his own reality svatattva." From an external, other-referential (vyavahara) aspect, the worthy Lord is said to have omniscient knowledge since all the objects in the world are within his grasp (PS 26-27 AC). In Niyamsara, Kundakunda categorically states: "From vyavahara point of view, the worthy Lord knows and intuits all (objects), i.e. he is omniscient; from nishchaya point of view, he necessarily knows and intuits his own self" (NS 159).
Unable to properly understand the Jaina doctrine of anekant and the ethico-spiritual viewpoints of Kundakunda, I.C. Shastri mistakenly accuses Kundakunda of causing "confusion". He blames Amrtachandra for taking "the position of Sautantrika, in holding that "knowledge takes the form of object" (pp. 177 and 175 of Jaina Epistemology), when he (Amrtachandra) unambiguously states that "all substances abide in their own characteristic nature" (PS 26 AC) and that "all the knowable appearances... abide in the things" and that the soul, “with the manifoldness of its efficacy, knows and sees" (PS 29 AC). Knowledge, Amrtachandra adds,
evolves onto all the distinguishable appearances which exist besides knowledge; and we may say that all the objects which are the causes of all the knowable appearances, which are (really) the effects of self-evolving knowledge, in a certain way reside in knowledge (PS 35 AC).
Shastri's contention that both Amrtachandra and Jayasena take "different courses to explain" (p. 175 of his book) Kundakunda's views pertaining to the exposition of knowledge also has no basis since both of them state that the knowable appearances may be compared to the reflection images (when located in the mirror of consciousness) (see PS 31 AC and PS 31 JS). Jayasena uses the word "adarsha", and Amrtachandra mentions "mukura", both terms meaning mirror. Shastri
