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THE ESSENCE OF JAINA SCRIPTURES
has risen above the realm of the senses—he himself evolves into knowledge and bliss. 1 bliss.
. This self, when its destructive karman has disappeared, because pure psychic-attention is capable of this; when it has risen above the realm of the senses, in consequences of being unblended with the knowledge and vision due to combined suppression (upasham) and annihilation (kshaya); when it possesses unlimited sublime energy, in consequence of the annihilation of all obstructive (antaraya) karman, when it abounds in splendour, called absolute (kevala) knowledge and vision (darshan), resulting from the complete perishing of all obscurations (avarana) of knowledge and vision (darshan) — this self, reaching the self, which in its innate nature is pure intelligenceabsolutely unblemished, because of the absence of all infatuating (mohaniya) karmans, evolves itself by becoming knowledge, i.e. illumination of the self and the other (svapara, self and other; i.e self and non-self),' and bliss, i.e. absence of confusedness. So then knowledge and bliss are the innate nature of the self. And, since innate nature does not depend on anything else, knowledge and bliss of the self arise even without sense-organs.
Now he explains how bodily pleasure and pain do not belong to the pure self, because it is without the senses:
20. Bodily pleasure or pain does not belong to him who possesses absolute knowledge or omniscience (kevala-jnana). Know that it is because he has transcended the realm of the senses.
Since the pure self does not possess the assemblage of sense-organs, just as little as the fire possesses the entire manifestation of matter which has met together in the iron ball, therefore bodily pleasure and pain, corresponding to the series of impacts of terrible hammer (ghana) blows, does not belong to it.
Now he gives the fuller explanation of the characteristic nature of knowledge and the fuller explanation of the characteristic-nature of happiness in two successive passages (see gathas 21-52 and 53-68]; and here he first explains how the perfect-sage (kevalin) has perception of all things, because he has evolved into supra-sensorial knowledge:
EXPOSITION OF KNOWLEDGE (VERSES 21-52) 21. For him, who is evolving into knowledge, directly perceives all substances and their modifications; he does not know them by
